


Life's Trial

by Tsubaki94



Series: The Pro's and Con's of being Danny Phantom [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:12:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 48,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9773915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsubaki94/pseuds/Tsubaki94
Summary: Vlad has realy screwed up Danny's life this time, not only did he miss three days of school overloading Danny with homework, but Danny has to deal with the problems of being removed from his home and placed in a temporary fosterhome while his parent's are put under the microscope.Not only is that trubble some but he is also the only capable defender aginst ghosts left in Amity Park.





	1. Chapter 1

Valeri was bored out of her mind, being hospitalized didn’t mean she’d die because of her injuries, just of boredom instead. She’d flicked through all the tv- channels twice the last couple of hours, only finding that daytime tv was where all the bad shows ended up. She finally gave up and just stayed on Nicelodeon deciding that cartoons were better than embarrassing people. She was falling asleep to an episode of Fairly Odd Parents when there was a knock on her open door.

Turning her head away from the tv her depressing day was suddenly a lot brighter. “Hi stranger.” She smiled at the black haired boy who was leaning against the door frame.

“Hi Val.” He smiled.

“Don’t just stand there get in here.” Valeri told him when he showed no signs of moving.

Pushing away from the wall Danny limped over to Valeri’s bed and sat down at the foot of it. To Valeri’s surprise he looked a lot thinner than he had the last time she saw him, all thou he didn’t look any better than he had that night. The silence drew out into an awkward moment and it wasn’t until Valeri decided to get right to the point that it was broken. “So you are Danny Phantom.” She said and watched in amusement as Danny squirmed.

Sighing he met Valeri’s eyes. “You saw me change back?” he asked dark shadows under his eyes making him look older than he was.

“You bet I did. I almost had a heart attack seeing you” She said and paused, “but what really scared me was seeing Vlad take you.” She looked closer at his face, there were small red scars around his eyes from the cuts he’d gotten on the school trip and there was a gloom to him that she’d never seen before. “What happened, What did he do to you?” she asked worriedly.

Scratching the back of his head Danny avoided Valeri’s eyes. “Nothing really.” He mumbled.

Leaning back Valeri crossed her arms in front of her. “Sam and Tucker were here yesterday looking for you.” She said and watched Danny flinched at the mention of their friends.

“I’ll call them when they are on lunch.” He said glancing at Valeri and it suddenly occurred to her.

“You worried I’m going to pull out my plasma ray and shoot you?” she asked amused.

Danny smiled sheepishly. “Don’t take this the wrong way but you’ve been threatening to kill me for over a year now.”

Valeri laughed and then made a face when pain shot through her left side. Turning around Danny watched her, his mood lighter. “I should have guessed.” Valeri finally said drying her eyes. “After I saw Danielle and Master change I should have guessed that Phantom was the same as them, how are you keeping it secret from your parents?”

“I have a double stand in for me some times and the rest of the time they’re just ignorant to the obvious.” He said sitting cross-legged facing Valeri. “Got any more questions?”

Having thought about the whole Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom thing Valeri didn’t have many questions seeing as a lot of the mysteries about Danny had been explained with his transformation. “Why did you drag your ghost dog through Axion industries?” she asked.

Rubbing his neck Danny sighed. “Cujo isn’t my dog, he used to be one of the guard dogs at Axion industries and just wanted his toy back. I tried to minimize the damage he caused but he is not that easy to control.”

There was a second silence that drew out to long for comfort and Danny lifted his eyes to look at Valeri. “The dog’s named Cujo?” she finally asked her thoughts on the times she’d become the Red Hunter.

“It was the name on his tag.” Danny said relaxing a bit.

Shaking her head she asked the second question she’d wanted to ask ever since finding out who Phantom was. “How did the son of two ghost-hunters become a ghost himself? You aren’t dead are you?”

Danny shrugged. “It was an accident with mom and dad’s ghost portal that made me like this, and to be honest sometimes I don’t know myself if I’m alive or dead.”

“Jezz your parents should really invest in some safety protocols.” Valeri said and smiled at Danny, glad that there weren’t any more big secrets between them and at the same time sad. Had she known about his secret before they might still be together but now they were better of as just friends. Besides she had to respect Sam’s feelings for him and give her a fair chance at a relationship, who knows they might make a cute couple.

Danny turned his head to one side and looked intently at Valeri. “What? Is there something on my face?” she asked.

“What were you thinking just now?” he asked a perplexed look on his face as if he’d just read her mind.  
Blushing she looked around for a different subject, her eyes landing on a red circle on his neck. “Nothing important. What’s that on your neck?”

To her surprise Danny’s face flushed red and he placed a hand over the mark on his neck. “Nothing.” He said and she saw him looking around the room for some other subject. His eyes landed on Valeri’s backpack beside her. “Say is your ghost hunting gear working correctly?”

Valeri blinked at him in surprise. “Of course it is!” she replied hotly.

Raising an eyebrow Danny looked at Valeri his icy blue eyes alight. “But it’s not. If it were you could have saved yourself from falling. You could have used all the weapons in the suit to take on Vlad in a near equal fight, but instead you used only your wrist rays and bazooka.”

She looked at Danny in surprise, she’d known he was smarter than people gave him credit for, but she hadn’t thought he was that observant. Pulling her backpack over to her she dug out the four bands that turned into her suit whenever she wanted to. “It is working; I just don’t have the necessary things needed to fix it.” Touching the bands she concentrated and they suddenly moved under her hand revealing the suit.

Looking at Danny’s face she saw fascination glitter in his eyes. “Well. It was a tech ghost who upgraded it for you. Maybe I can fix it.” He said moving a tentative hand over the suit.

Valeri gave him a skeptical look. “I’d rather have your parents try and fix it than you.” She turned the suit back into its four bands.

“Yeah, but you could at least let me try fixing it, I might get Technus to help me. “He glanced up at Valeri and smiled. “Who knows he might upgrade it again.”

Surprised at his confidence Valeri avoided his eyes, if she didn’t know better she’d thought someone had replaced him with a ghost hunting geek like his parents. “Hell I can’t hunt ghost like this anyways, there is only two conditions, one you have it back to me in one month.” She said and handed Danny the bands.

“What’s the second condition?” he asked pocketing the bands.

“Tell me how you got that mark on your neck, it wasn’t there three days ago.” Danny’s hand went immediately to his neck, covering the circle. His reaction was a bit too fast, she suddenly thought of something that made her draw back. “Don’t tell me Vlad did it.”

“What!? No!” his face turned a beat red color matching his red hoody.

“Oh my god! He did!” Valeri said reading the answer in Danny’s reddened face, “That vampire popsicle tried to drink your blood.” Hunching his shoulders up Danny mumbled something. “Sorry can’t hear you when you’re mumbling.” Valeri said leaning forward.

“I don’t know what he did.” Danny said.

Looking at Danny the anger she’d felt a moment before turned in to worry. She knew him and knew that he would always joke things of when they bothered him like he did when they fought, but he wasn’t joking now. “What happened?” She asked in a lower tone of voice.

“That’s the thing.” Danny said not meeting her eyes. “The last thing I remember is stopping Vlad from strangling you, after that everything is blurred.”

“So you don’t even remember that ghostly wail and the ice construction?” she asked afraid to imagen what Vlad might have done to cause Danny to lose two days’ worth of memories.

“Did it work?” Danny asked jumping at the opportunity to change the subject.

“The ice stereo? I believe so, there wasn’t a ghost in the sky when it fell.” She reached forward and placed her left hand on Danny’s. “You are avoiding my question Danny.” She said trying to press him for answers without being too hard on him.

“Daniel! It’s time to go.” A blond woman said from the door making the two teenagers turn around. “Come along we can’t keep Mrs Oswald waiting for too long.” She was dressed in a nice suit and heals that made her look taller and more elegant.

Danny made a face. “I have to go.” He gave Valeri a sad smile. “I’m glad you are all right.” He said getting down from the bed.

Doing her best to answer him Valeri watched Danny leave the room without saying a word. Her thoughts went to the conversation they’d just had and she realized that she hadn’t asked him how long he’d known she was the hunter. Thinking back to all her encounters with him she remembered him calling her by her name on several occasions even before they became friends.

Remembering the time he’d destroyed her first suit she realized that he had actually known that she wasn’t in it and that he’d always held back when fighting her even thou she’d done her best to destroy him. Tears started rolling down her cheeks as another thought made her realize something far greater about the people she now called friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark and glumy can't begin to describe how Danny is feeling as he thinks back on that morning at Vlad's mansion

Slouching down in the passenger seat of the Ford belonging to his social worker Danny pulled up his hood. “Put on your seatbelt.” Mrs Stewarts said putting her own seatbelt on as soon as she got in to the driver’s seat. Reaching up Danny put on the seatbelt and glanced at the social worker as if asking if there was anything else she wanted him to do, like sit up straight and pull down his hood, but she only nodded in approval and started the car.

Danny had met Mrs Sara Stewarts that morning.

He’d been sitting in Vlad’s kitchen an untouched bowl of cereals and milk in front of him. Vlad had been the one to place the bowl there and fill it before ordering him to eat, then he’d left the kitchen. For a moment he’d been tempted to leave, just turn ghost and fly home but the next moment Vlad was back flinging a towel on to Danny’s head. “You’ll catch a cold if you go out like that.” He said. Danny had borrowed Vlad’s shower that morning.

The fever had made him literary sweat buckets, after going through the shower he felt a bit more like himself, thou there were new bruises and cuts on his body he couldn’t remember getting. Finding clothes from his own closet lying on the sink he got suspicious but put them on glancing at Vlad who’d never left him alone for a moment. “Can you explain this?” he’d asked pointing at the bite-mark on his neck.

Vlad explained it, making Danny’s face turn red with embarrassment. He couldn’t look Vlad in the eyes after that. 

Lifting his hand to his head Danny dried his still wet hair while Vlad walking around in the kitchen making coffee and toast. Spacing out Danny poked his breakfast not noticing it when Vlad moved in to stand behind him before he started placing pills on the table in front of Danny.

Blinking Danny counted them, five in total. “I want you to eat them all.” Vlad said taking the towel from Danny and rubbed his hair dry properly.

“What are they?” Danny asked picking one of them up.

“Vitamins that’ll return your immune system to normal.” Vlad answered shortly.

“And what if I don’t take them?” Danny asked returning to poke his cereals.

“I will shove them down your throat.” He placed a small medicine box with pockets dated Monday to Sunday beside Danny. “And if you don’t take these once every day for the next week I will force them down your throat when you least expect it.”

Like a stubborn child Danny didn’t move a muscle trying to think of a way he could avoid taking the pills. There was always a chance that they were poison, maybe they wouldn’t kill him but they might weaken him. He could always hide them under his tong or just phase his hand in to himself and take them out. Before he could make a decision Vlad picked up the five pills and forced them to Danny’s mouth.

Keeping his mouth closed on principle Danny tried to pry Vlad’s hand away from his mouth. To focused on the hand over his mouth, he didn’t notice the older man’s other hand come down hard on his right thigh before pain shot through him. Letting out and involuntary gasp Vlad shoved the pills in to his mouth and placed his second hand over Danny’s nose.

Instinctively Danny bit down on Vlad’s finger still in his mouth, tasting blood. They struggled for a moment before Danny couldn’t stop himself from swallowing, feeling the pills go down his throat together with some of Vlad’s blood. The older man let go of Danny phasing his finger out of his mouth. “Do you want me to do that every day or will you take the pills on your own from now on?” Vlad asked not even caring that his finger was bleeding.

Danny glared up at Vlad blood coloring his lips and the side of his mouth. He opened his mouth to say something nasty but stopped himself. Getting up from his chair he walked over to the sink and washed out his mouth before drinking some water, all the while watched by Vlad. 

The doorbell rang and Vlad moved out of the kitchen. Seconds later Danny could hear him talk in his falsely friendly tone of voice. “Ah you must be Mrs Sara Stewarts, please come in.”

“Thank you, Mr Master.” A soft woman said. “I must say that I was surprised to hear that the mayor of Amity Park took in the victim of parental abuse in his own home.” She said in a low enough voice that normal human wouldn’t be able to hear.

“The Fentons are old college friends of mine. To tell you the truth, had I known things were this bad for their son I would have done something sooner.” Vlad said and Danny could hear them move towards the kitchen. “The boy is in here.”

Walking through the door with Vlad was a short woman with short cut blond hair, sunburned skin and soft wrinkles around her eyes. She was dressed in a suit and a pair of heals that made her as tall as Vlad. “Hallo Daniel.” She said seeing him. “My name is Mrs Sara Stewarts, I’m your social worker.” She held out her hand for Danny to shake.

Glancing at Vlad Danny got the impression that he’d better be polite or things might get uglier. “Call me Danny.” He said shaking the social workers hand quickly before limping back to his cereals that looked less tasty now than it had a moment ago.

“Please have a seat.” Vlad said pulling out the chair opposite Danny. “Can I offer you some coffee?” He asked as Mrs Stewarts sat down.

“Please that would be lovely.” She said taking out a notebook and a pen from her handbag.  
She spent the next hour trying to get Danny to talk to her but to her annoyance Danny only stared into his bowl of cereals, occasionally shrugging when asked a question and sometimes glaring at Vlad.

Finally leaving Vlad’s house Danny was dismayed when Mrs Stewarts stopped outside the hospital. “What are we doing here?” he asked.

“You have an appointment with a ME Scot, is that going to be a problem?” she asked raising an eyebrow.

Swallowing Danny shook his head “I rather not be in a hospital again is all.” He said and followed Mrs Stewarts out of the car even thou his instincts were screaming at him to get away. He walked a step behind Mrs Stewarts all the way through the hospital and was surprised to find that his heart wasn’t racing of and that he was still breathing normally. Any other time he’d even as much as walked in to a hospital the last year he’d had a panic attack. Wondering what had been in the pills Vlad gave him, they walked deeper in to the hospital. 

He was still wondering what had been in the pills two hours later when Mrs Stewarts pulled the car up onto the driveway of what Danny could only describe as the American dream house. It looked like it could belong on the front page of a magazine, freshly painted facade, a green garden with large trees that still held on to their orange leafs, a swing hanging from one of the branches, a white picket fence, a glassed porch and a handmade mail box saying The Oswald’s

“Were are we?” Danny asked rubbing his tired eyes.

“Wishing Hill. It’s the next town over from Amity Park.” Mrs Stewarts explained. “Come on Mrs Oswald is waiting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I seeme to always make the secound chapter a flashback chapter, is this good or should I stop doing it? Tell me what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting moved in to a new place can be really scary at times but finding that someone youve been looking for was right under your nose ia an amazing feeling.

It didn’t take Danny long before he decided that Mrs Oswald was an alright person. For reasons to complicated to be explained it had been decided that Danny was going to live with her, her son and second foster child until it was decided whether or not Danny’s parents were fit to take care of him. Mrs Oswald was as tall as Danny, she had curly red hair that she’d tied in a knot at the back of her neck, she wore jeans and a normal flannel shirt over a t-shirt with a gardening logo on it.

The first thing she did seeing her new charge was put him down on a chair in the kitchen and make him a sandwich. “Didn’t they feed you were you lived?” she asked when Danny devoured the peanut butter and jam sandwich. He shrugged and devoured the second sandwich she made for him, not having realized before how hungry he really was.

Mrs Stewarts and Oswald talked for a bit explaining the rules for Danny. The first rule was that he weren’t allowed to go home to his parents and the last rule was that while under Mrs Oswald’s roof he was to listen to her and follow her rules. All in all Danny was most likely going to break the rules when he left in the middle of the night to patrol Amity Park, but then again he was always breaking rules at home with his parents so why start follow someone else’s rules now.

Mrs Oswald showed Danny his room, located on the ground floor at the back of the house. He found that someone had already brought over a bag with most of his clothes from home as well as his schoolbag. Walking over to his it, he found his laptop and that his first aid kit was missing as well as his Fenton thermos. Opening his computer he found that it was already on. “I suppose you are one of the kids who stay in all day playing videogames?” Mrs Oswald asked.

Danny looked up from the computer screen. “No, I’m not.” He said thinking of how little time he was actually spending at home. Looking back down at the chat conversation he, Sam and Tucker shared his eyes narrowed. There was a ton of messages from them there. Some where they were talking to each other and some that were intentionally aimed at him. Typing a quick message back he turned off the computer and put it to charge.

Danny was shown the rest of the house before they returned to the kitchen that apparently was the focal point of the house. Sitting down at the kitchen table Danny began forming a plan for how he was going to get out of the mess he was in and get back to his parents. “I’ll see you later Danny.” Mrs Stewarts said walking out in to the hall with Mrs Oswald.

Danny listened with half an ear to the two’s hushed discussion in the hall. “Hopefully he will open up more after he gets to know you.” Mrs Stewarts said.

“Hopefully, I can only imagen what that boy have been through, I have rarely seen a kid with eyes like him.” Mrs Oswald said and Danny heard the sound of cloths moving.

Mrs Stewarts sighed. “When the ME’s report comes back it can tell us more, but till then treat him like any other teenager.” There was a click and Danny heard the door open.

“I’m home… Oh hi Mrs Stewarts, what are you doing here?” Said a new voice, one that sounded very familiar but Danny couldn’t quite place it.

“Hi sweetie you’re home early.” Mrs Oswald said in a normal tone of voice.

“Yeah you won’t believe me but I forgot my gym bag, I’m just running up to get it then I’m off again.” The girl said and Danny looked over at the door to see who the voice belonged to.

There was a loud scream.

The two woman in the hall turned and hurried over to the kitchen door just in time to see two black haired teenagers fall to the floor hugging each other. “Oh my god Danny I can’t believe you are here, how did you find me?” Danielle said hugging Danny as tightly as she could.

“I didn’t.” Danny said giving his cousin a hard squish that made her let go of him. “It’s great to see you again, holy shit you’ve grown.”

“Of course I’ve grown you didn’t think I was going to be a pipsqueak forever did you.” Danielle said sitting back to let Danny get up, his face going pale when she put her weight on his right leg. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Danny said ignoring the pain in favor for the happy feeling of seeing his cousin.

The two women in the door looked at the teenagers in surprise. “You two know each other?” Mrs Stewarts asked.

“He’s my clone.” Said Dannielle at the same time as Danny said. “She’s my cousin.” They looked at each other and then spoke at the same time again. “He’s my cousin, She’s my clone.” They looked at each other and started laughing.

The two women exchanged confused looks. They hadn’t thought that Danny face could light up the way it did when he looked at Dannielle, or that his dark mood could have changed so suddenly. “Is it cousins or clones?” Mrs Oswald asked watching the two get up of the floor.

“Cousins.” Danny said leaning on a chair for support. “Dannielle is my third cousin twice removed on my dad’s side.” He said looking at the girl for confirmation.

“Yupp, Hey you’ve grown to, that ain’t fair!” Dannielle exclaimed punching Danny on the shoulder.

Mrs Stewarts shook her head, looking at the two acting as if nothing in the world was wrong. She could see the similarities in their appearance, same black hair, same blue eyes, same skin color even the shape of their faces were the same. Only her feminine curves and the fact that Dannielle’s hair was long put them apart. “You’d think they were twins.” She said in a lowered voice to Mrs Oswald. “Anyways I have to go. I’ll be back soon.” She said in her normal voice before once again saying goodbye.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting up with Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger the two make plannes.

“I’m not sure. You just got here, you should stay here and get to know the place a bit more.” Mrs Oswald said when Danny asked for permission to go to Amity Park to meet up with Sam and Tucker.

“I won’t be gone for long. But they have the homework I need to make up for the three days of school I’ve missed.” Danny pleaded. If Mrs Oswald wasn’t going to give him permission to leave the house Danny was just going to make a copy of himself and fly over to his friends anyways. But he was still weak and didn’t want to split his powers in case he needed it.

Mrs Oswald bit her lower lip thinking over Danny’s argument. “You can get the homework tomorrow when you go to school.” She said but the argument wasn’t strong.

“Sure I can, but that would mean sacrificing an afternoon of studying and I already have trouble keeping up with schoolwork, I will fall even more behind if I don’t take advantage of my free time.” He shifted his stance and slumped his shoulders. “Besides my friends are worried I haven’t talked to them in two days, they think some ghost from Amity Park kidnapped me.”

Sighing Mrs Oswald looked at Danny with a raised eyebrow. “If it weren’t for the fact that ghost really exists I would say that your friends are over reacting. But I did see Amity Park disappear of the map that one time.” She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Okay, the busses leave once every hour, next one leaves in 10 min from the bus stop down the street. We eat supper together at 7pm come home before that.”

“I will.” Danny smiled and headed for the door.

“Put on a jacket it’s cold out.” Mrs Oswald said from the kitchen door seeing Danny walk past his jacket.

He put on the jacket and was out of the door before Mrs Oswald could say anything else. Walking hurriedly down the street Danny looked around. The streets were deserted, in the middle of the week at 2pm, the only people at home were too busy with other things that they never looked out their windows.

Had someone bothered to look out their window at the street, they would have seen Danny dodge in between a large hedge and a leafy bush. They might even have noticed the sudden flash of light, but most likely would have mistaken it for a camera flash. People might have wondered what the blurred shape flying out of the bushes was and eventually they would decide that it was just a large bird. No one would notice that the kid never came out of the bushes, and no one cared.

Danny flew up to the gray sky looking around the ground under him as he did. Getting his bearings he sped of in the direction of Amity Park dipping in to the clouds to wake himself up.

Going from Wishing Hill to Amity Park by car would take an hour, for Danny who was taking the birds route it took half that time to reach his destination on the other side of Amity Park. “No traffic to bother with in the sky.” He said landing behind the Nasty Burger place where he was to meet Sam and Tucker. Putting his feet’s on the ground he changed back and the world suddenly tilted over.

Flinging a hand out against the buildings wall he caught himself. Staying still Danny stared at the dumpster in front of him as his sense of balance returned. “That was weird.” He sighed and pushed away from the wall when he was sure the ground wouldn’t try to jump up and hit him in the face again.

Walking around to the front he glanced Sam and Tucker sitting in their normal spot beside a window arguing as always. Entering The Nasty Burger he could hear what they were saying and smiled.

“Are you ever going to give the veggie vs meat thing a rest?” He asked leaning over the seat Tucker was sitting on.

“Of course not.” Tucker said taking a big bite of his double meat burger.

“You just don’t know when you’re wrong.” Sam said and then she blinked up at Danny. “Holy shit Danny what happened to you.”

“Just won a fight against Vlad and saved Valeri at the same time.” Danny said sitting down beside Tucker who pushed a burger and soda towards him. “Thanks.” He said before unwrapping the burger.

Swallowing his food Tucker drank some of his own drink before speaking. “That fight was three days ago, before Valeri was admitted to the hospital. Where have you been?”

“Yeah, It was really chivalrous of you to just leave her injured on that roof. You know she might not be alive today if the people in that building hadn’t gone up there to see what had happened.” Sam scolded before taking a bite of her soymilk grass sandwich.

Looking down at his burger Danny wasn’t sure he was all that hungry any more. “I didn’t know.” He said and when his friends looked at him intently waiting for him to continue he sighed. “I assume you heard my wail?” he asked.

The two nodded, Tucker took another bite of his burger ready to hear a great story that would explain everything. But the story wasn’t that great and Danny didn’t have many details. “The wail took the last of my energy, I had been using my powers all weekend to keep that fever at bay so that we could enjoy the movie marathon.”

“You did what!” Sam exclaimed both angry and worried.

“Don’t interrupt or we might never hear the end.” Tucker said through a mouthful of burger.

Danny nodded his thanks to Tucker and looked down at his burger. “I blacked out and didn’t wake up before last night.” The two looked at him surprised at how short the story was when Danny could normally go on for a good half hour about a fight with Vlad. Sighing Danny added. “In Vlad’s mansion.”

The looks on his friends faces were priceless. “You’re joking.” Sam said her eyebrows disappearing under her fringe. “What the hell were you doing at Vlad’s place?”

Tucker had to swallow his food before he could speak. “How did you end up in that creeps dungeon?”

Danny scratched the back of his head, a nervous tick. “I wasn’t in a dungeon Tuck. For some reason Vlad spared Valeri when he realized that the antidote for Blood Blossom was burning me out.” He looked at his two best friends. “He didn’t hurt me he took care of me.”

They just blinked at Danny for a second, Tucker slowly moving his burger to his mouth and missing. “If he didn’t hurt you Danny how come you look like, sorry for the expression, like a Ghost.”

Sighing Danny finally took a huge bite of his burger. “Cus when I said the antidote was burning me out, that was literary what happened.” He swallowed.

“And what’s that on your neck?” Sam asked leaning over the table to push his hoody away from his neck. “Is this a bite mark?”

“What? Let me see.” Tucker said and glanced around Danny to look at the circler mark scar on his neck.

“Vlad’s got a matching on his left arm.” Danny said feeling his face turn red.

“Dud, what really happened in there, he can’t have taken care of you if you’ve got bite marks on your neck.” Tucker said sitting back down.

Meeting Sam’s eyes he saw worry there. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” She said sitting back down again making Danny feel as if she was closing him out of something.

Rubbing the mark on his neck he spoke. “I wasn’t thinking straight, that fever burnt through my mind and…” He scratched at his temples trying to remember. “I dreamt of things that weren’t all that pleasant. Vlad tried to keep me from hurting myself it sort of ended with me biting his arm and one thing led to another and he bit my neck.” Shaking his head Danny gave up trying to remember and leaned back.

They were all quiet for some time eating their food. “We were looking for you when we heard your wail.” Sam began getting a raised eyebrow from Tucker. “You weren’t answering your phone and when we went by your house there was no one there. And when you didn’t show up for school we got really worried.”

“I figured that from the chat.” Danny said sipping at his soda, the burger gone.

“Well when we went to your house on Monday after school your folks said that you weren’t home but they weren’t worried.” Tucker continued having figured out what Sam was talking about. “You think they’re being overshadowed or tricked by Vlad or something?”

Finishing his soda Danny took off the lid. “They are not being tricked or overshadowed.” He said picking up and ice cube. “No things are even worse than that.” He bit down on the ice, chewing it.

“What then?” Sam asked intrigued.

“They’ve been reported to social services, for neglect of a minor, physical abuse of a minor and psychic abuse of a minor in their care.” Danny said biting down on a second cube of ice. “That’s what Vlad bragged about last night anyways.”

His two friends looked stunned at him. “What does that mean?” Tucker asked and then realizing how stupid he sounded he added. “For you and your ghost fighting I mean?”

Rolling his shoulders Danny told them about the temporary foster home, adding that Dannielle was living there, and then went on whit his plan for the normal patrols and ghost fighting. When it came to the planning part they were all in trying to figure out the best way to keep Amity Park safe without its two best ghost fighters in town.

“Then all we need is some extra equipment from your parents and things will work out.” Sam said getting up. “We should get over there now and pick up the things before anything has a chance to go wrong.”

“Hope you didn’t jinx it just now.” Tucker said putting on his jacket.

Leaving the burger joint they walked around the back of the building where Danny changed and like so many times before his friends put their arms around his shoulders and he carried them all up in to the air. Just as the back door to the joint opened and an under payed and over worked teenager walked out with the trash.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting their son removed from them and being acused of hurting him is taking a tool on Danny's parents.

Danny’s bedroom looked just like it had the night he left, minus his laptop and schoolbooks. Sinking down on his bed the three friends turned visible. “Now what?” Sam asked walking over to listen at the door. “Should we go to the weapons vault and you sneak down in to the lab?”

Lying back on his bed Danny sighed. “Yeah I can take you in to the vault unnoticed just give me a sec.” He sank through the bed and the floor under it hearing his friends hiss at him.

Turning invisible Danny floated through the kitchen where his dad sat, a large schematics over the house power grid drawn up on the table. ‘Do I want to know what he’s planning to do with that.’ Danny thought and floated around for a bit before sinking down into the basement where his mom was sitting in front of the computer talking to someone.

Pacing back and for Sam was doing her best not to make a sound in her heavy combat boots. “He shouldn’t have taken of like that.” She growled.

“Give it a rest Sam.” Tucker said tapping on his trusted smartphone. “You’ve been this irritable cloud for the last couple of days now, what’s up with you?”

Spinning on one heal Sam glared at Tucker. “Haven’t you noticed how he keeps things from us. He was doing it when he’d had that fight with Dash after Chicago, he did it again at the hospital last Friday, and he did it now at Nasty Burger when telling that story.” She kicked the carpet.

Putting down his phone Tucker looked at Sam. “Don’t you think you are over reacting? Danny haven’t always told us everything, just like we don’t tell him everything.” He crossed his arms and looked at Sam meaningfully.

“What that supposed to mean?” she asked putting her hands on her hips.

Raising an eyebrow Tucker looked at her with that smug face of someone who knew a secret. “You haven’t told him you like him yet, and you didn’t tell him that you skipped both Monday and Tuesday afternoon classes to go around town looking for him.”

“You should have done it too.” She hissed. “Instead you were sitting in class poking at your stupid phone.”

Leaning back Tucker lifted his phone looking at the screen. “I was looking to.” He said and turned the phone so Sam could see the screen.

She walked over to the bed and looked at it. “Security cameras.” She said and then it hit her. “You were looking for him using security cameras.”

Smiling Tucker pulled up his second phone. “And trying to hack in to Vlad’s spy cameras, But I didn’t get through his firewalls.” He looked his friend in the eye. “Why are you angry at him, he haven’t done anything wrong has he?”

Flopping down on the bed Sam glared at Danny’s NASA poster. “He keeps things from us, didn’t I just tell you that.”

“You did, but we are all keeping things from each other.” Tucker put his second phone away. “Or maybe that’s why you are angry.” Sam looked at him an eyebrow raised. “Because you like him.”

Rolling her eyes she got up and started pacing again thou with less anger in her steps. Her conversation with Jazz that weekend had gone in a similar way but Jazz had agreed that her brother didn’t seem like himself after Chicago. But maybe none of them were the same as they had been before that trip. After all, Tucker too was keeping things closer to his chest than normally. Thinking back to that time she’d been the only one to not get as much as a scratch during the trip. She’d kept her head cold during the whole thing like she always did. And now she was losing her cold because she thought her friends were different but maybe she was the one who was different.

“Are you going to wear a hole in my floor?” Danny asked phasing through his door.

“No only your carpet.” She answered and stopped walking. “Where did you go off to?” she asked seeing Tucker getting up from the bed.

“Someone removed my first aid kit from my bag and my phone was missing.” Danny said showing the two objects in his hands.

“To the vault then?” Tucker asked. Danny nodded and put his things on the bed before taking his friends hands and phasing them through two walls and down a floor in to the Fenton’s weapons vault.

Using his ghost ray to light up his hand Danny let the light illuminate the room. Tucker let out a whistle. “Your parents have been busy.” He walked over to a set of large canons. “Mind if I take one of these?”

Shrugging Danny leaned against the door to the vault. “If you want to, they are just foamers anyways. The ghost rays are on the third shelf section B.” He said noticing a note sitting on the door.

‘Note to self, Have Danny install handle on inside of vault door.’

Smiling Danny put the note back and watched his friends as they worked their way through his parents many inventions switching out some of their gear for new once. “Hey Danny where are the shields you were talking about?” Sam asked putting a specter deflector in her back pack.

“Still in the lab, I might have forgotten to mention that Dad blew it up last week.” Walking over to stand beside Sam he helped her take down a box of batteries for the belt.

“To bad.” Tucker said from the other end where the many crap detection devices were. “Is there any sort of ghost radar of detection thing here that doesn’t require you to get up and personal with the ghost?” He asked flicking the Boomerang over his shoulder.

“There should be a radar, or compass there somewhere. Dad called it the Fenton Finder.” Danny said dodging the oncoming boomerang.

Shuffling things around Tucker shook his head and turned to the others in time to see the Boomerang hit Danny in the back of the head. Both he and Sam snickered as Danny picked the stupid thing up and placed it on a shelf. “Ha ha very funny.” He said not at all amused. “If the thing isn’t there maybe mom and dad moved it, or Jazz took it with her.”

They all looked at each other. They had seen the things Jazz had taken with her and knowing that she might try her hand at armature ghost hunting the radar would be a must have. “I’ll text her.” Sam finally said plucking her phone up from somewhere on her person.

It didn’t take long for Jazz to answer back. Sighing Sam read out the message. “No I don’t have it. Ask Danny if he knows.” Sam looked at the others, “What do we do now? Build one of our own?”

“It would be a lot easier if we could ask your parents Danny.” Tucker said placing a ghost web grenade in his bag.

“We might. Can I borrow your phone for a moment?” Danny walked over to Sam.

Raising an eyebrow Sam handed him her phone. “What’s wrong with your phone?” she asked as Danny typed a new message to Jazz.

“Out of power.” Danny said handing back the phone to Sam. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He said before phasing through the floor.

Down in his parent’s lab Danny’s mom was still sitting in front of the computer video chatting with Jazz. Floating up invisible behind his mom Danny could see Jazz pick up her phone and look at it. “Is that your boyfriend texting you.” His mother teased.

Jazz read the message and looked up at the screen. “No it’s just a friend.” Grinning Danny turned visible and waved at Jazz. His sister jumped and opened her mouth to shout something before slapping a hand over her mouth.

“Are you alright sweetie!” Their mother asked worriedly leaning forward.

Shaking her head Jazz glared at Danny who went invisible just in time to avoid his mother’s suspicious eyes as she turned to look behind her. “I’m fine.” Jazz said. “Just a toothache.”

“You aren’t eating too much sweets are you, I know that they are good to keep up your energy when you’re studying but a lot of dentist makes their money on students who eats too much.” Their mother said back worrying, her sad tone filling Danny with more guilt. He’d heard parts of their conversation when he was in the lab before. Most of what had been said was things Danny already knew about the situation but the heartache his mother had described to his sister had been torture to listen to.

“I know.” Jazz said and her eyes were once more on the spot where Danny was floating. Turning visible he gave Jazz a meaningful look and she nodded understandingly. “Say mom where do you keep the Ghost Radar, is it in the Weapons Vault?” She asked emphasizing the vault as if asking Danny if he’d looked there.

“The Fenton Finder?” Danny watched his mom look around the lab. “I think it’s up in the Ops center, why do you ask?”

Biting her lower lip Jazz looked at Danny. “I was just wondering, I think Danny might want to borrow it, you know how scared of ghosts he is.” Danny stuck his tongue out at his sister.

Looking at his mom Danny felt another stab of guilt, tears were welling up in her eyes. “I know what you mean.” She sniffed. “I can remember it like yesterday, he would always make us check under his bed for ghosts and wouldn’t let us leave his room before we checked the closet as well.” She dried her eyes on her sleeve.

“I know mom.” Jazz said glaring at Danny as if it was his fault their mother was crying. “I bet he can’t sleep that well at that foster home when there’s no ghost shield or ghost alarms there.”

Shrugging Danny waved goodbye to his sister and flew up. He’d wanted to give his mother a hug, tell her that it wasn’t their fault and do whatever he could to reassure them that although his sister was wrong about him not being able to sleep. He’d much rather live at home with them, where the ghost alarm went off at 2am in the morning and his parents banging on his door to tell him that it was just a falls alarm.

Reaching the vault his friends turned to him as he once more illuminated the room with his ghost ray. “Did you find out where it is?” Tucker asked turning of the flashlight on his phone.

“Yeah, you got everything you need in here?” Danny said looking over the shelves for things he might need.

Patting a bulging bag Sam smiled. “Everything needed to take out almost every ghost we know of. As long as we can see them.”

Tucker snapped his fingers. “That something your parents should spend time inventing. Googles that lets you see ghost when they are invisible.”

Taking a new pair of Fenton headphones from a dusty shelf Danny nodded. “I’ll make sure to mention it to them when I get a chance.” He put away the headphones and took out a new thermos from a box filed with them, clipping it to his belt. “Ready to go?” he asked

Once more they put their arms around Danny’s shoulders and he lifted them up into the Fenton Emergency Ops Center. “What happened here?” Sam asked putting her feet’s on a couple of cables flowing out of open panels.

“I have no idea.” Danny said walking over to the panels trying to remember what they did. “I think Dad is trying to do something whit the proximity alarm.” He said pushing a couple of cables away from the radar panel.

“Looks like he’s spending a lot of time up here.” Tucker noted pointing at a table filled with dishes, pizza boxes and Chinese takeout leftovers.

Sighing Danny walked over to the mess. “You guys look for the Ghost radar, I’m just going to take care of this.” He said finding a garbage bag that was already half full.

“Can’t you just leave it to your parents? You don’t exactly live here anymore.” Sam looked at Danny worried that she might have said something wrong.

To her relief Danny smiled up at her. “It’s fine. Dad will only make me do it when I come home anyways. Can you imagen what it will be like then.” He said laughing a bit. “I’ll be back in a second.” He said before flying off.

While Tucker and Sam looked through the Ops center for the device, Danny flew in and out of the walls taking out the trash and putting dishes in the dishwasher down in the kitchen. When Tucker found the thing it was out of power and they spent 10 min looking for a working power outlet.

Finishing the cleaning Danny floated beside his friends showing them how the radar worked. “It’s simple just point it in any direction and it will tell you when a ghost is near. Mom upgraded it to display as a normal radar on the screen as well.” He pressed a button and the thing started beeping loudly and fast.

“A ghost is near, turn 180 degrees.” The soft woman voice said from the radar. Tucker turned to point the thing at Danny. “The ghost is right in front of you, you must be blind not to see it.”

“A device with attitude, I like it.” Sam said taking it from Tucker. “So how far dose it work?”

Shrugging Danny pressed the off button. “Mom and Dad said something about satellite when they first showed it two years ago”

“You’d think your parent’s would have figured out you are half ghost by now if they’ve had this all the time.” Tucker said getting to his feet’s.

“Yah.” Danny said scratching the back of his head hoping that Tucker hadn’t just jinxed him. “Are you finished so we can go?”

Sam got up from where she’d been sitting putting the ghost radar in her bag and bringing out a folder. “I almost forgot here’s your English, math, chemistry and history homework.” She handed Danny the thick folder. “Mr Lancer said to tell you that he expect you to finish the normal homework for the week by Friday and that you have all of next week to hand in the extra assignments you got for missing school.”

Danny made a face. “It gets better.” Tucker said opening his own bag. “I got the rest of your homework as well as a list of words to learn for Esperanto tomorrow.” He handed Danny as second folder, this one a bit thinner than the one from Sam.

“I’m going to spend all the weekend at the library because of this.” He sighed.

“Not all weekend, or have you forgotten the Goth poet evening on Sunday. You promised you’d show up.” Sam said putting on her backpack.

“Well almost.” He said. They put their arms around his shoulders once again and stopping by Danny’s room for him to pick up the things he left there and put it in a bag. Then they were of. Danny left Tucker a block away from where he lived but flew Sam all the way to her bedroom.

“Thanks.” She said leaning away from Danny letting her hand fall to touch his. They glanced at each other not wanting to break the connection but inevitably having to.

Feeling like his knees had turned in to noodles Danny drew his hand away from Sam’s. Scratching the back of his head he avoided meeting her eyes. “I’m going then.” He said taking a step back.

“Don’t miss school tomorrow.” Sam said before Danny phased through the wall and flew of. She swore at herself when he was gone. She could have said so many things to him, she could have asked him to stay, to talk. But instead she’d told him not to miss school, like that was the important thing.

Flopping down on the covers of her soft bed Sam glared up at the ceiling. “At least I got him to come to the poets evening.” She said to herself feeling a bit giddy about the whole thing.


	6. Chapter 6

Biting his lip Danny considered flying back to Sam and saying a proper good bye but stopped himself from acting like a fool. Sam was angry at him, he’d heard enough of Tucker’s and hers conversation before reentering his room to know that. But thinking back to the moment just now in her room he hadn’t felt any anger coming from her, or maybe he’d just been too nervous to feel any emotions at all.

Diving in to a cold cloud Danny shook his head, whenever he started to think of Sam as anything more than one of his best friends his legs threatened to turn intangible or he said something stupid. It was best to stay friends, he thought, if they became a thing like everyone else thought they were the inevitable breakup might damage their friendship. He rather keep Sam as a great friend than hurt her.

Flying back to Wishing Hill Danny keep diving in and out of the clouds till he felt like he’d taken a cold shower. He didn’t go back to Mrs Oswald’s house, instead he flew around the town getting to know it a bit better.

Like Amity Park there was the normal shopping malls, apartment buildings that looked run down, a large suburb whit houses that all seemed to compete at being the most ideal. There was a hospital that was located close to the building were the social services had their office in town. Unlike Amity Park that was close to a large body of water there was no harbor in Wishing Hill. Instead there was a train station and the town seamed to rely on lumber industry.

Finding the local High School Danny also found that Wishing Hill had a large sports center and remember that the high school’s football team had completely obliterated Casper Highs team in the first game of the year. Not far from the high school was the library, an ugly modern building of concrete and glass.

Landing in an alley between the library and some sort of café, Danny hid behind a dumpster and leaning against the wall he changed back to his human form. He waited for a moment to see if his head was going to start spinning again but when nothing happened he pushed of from the wall and headed for the library.

The architect who designed the building obviously had no taste. Everything was gray, minimalistic and uncomfortable. Being used to Amity Parks library or even Casper highs small library Danny had a hard time finding the books he needed to start any of his homework. He finally had to ask for directions and got shown in to a smaller room with bookshelves on three of the four walls, a painting like something taken from the bibles Old Testament painted on the fourth wall. In the middle of the room were two large tables with squared off work spaces, reading lamps and power outlets for computers running along the middle.

There was only one other person sitting in the room and Danny recognized him at once. There was no mistaking the combed back blond hair, the broad shoulders or the white and red varsity jacket. Taking a deep breath Danny walked past Dash hoping that he was too focused on his homework to notice him.

No such luck. Dash looked up as soon as the door to the room closed. The blond boy narrowed his eyes at Danny. “What are you doing here Fen-turd?” he asked straightening in his chair.

“Looking for a book, what else?” Danny said moving over to the shelf were the Chemistry books were. Trying his best to keep from saying anything more Danny bit his lower lip. To his surprise Dash didn’t say anything back, picking out the book he needed Danny turned to face the larger boy.

Once again Dash was sitting with his nose deep in his math book muttering to himself, balls of paper were lying all around him. Walking past Danny picked up one of the balls and looked at it.

“Hey what are you doing!” Dash growled snatching the piece of paper away from Danny’s hands. But not fast enough and Danny smiled. Dash was trying to figure out the same type of math problems he himself had been stuck on before his sister helped him.

“You won’t solve the problem if you keep doing the same mistake.” Danny said walking off to sit at the second table as far away from Dash as he could.

Regretting having taken advance chemistry Danny flipped throw the pages of the book trying to find the answers to his homework. He was chewing on the end of his pen while trying to figure out what the author meant when a piece of paper hit the side of his head and landed on the book. Glaring up at Dash he saw him quickly turn his attention back to his math.

Picking up the ball of paper Danny read what was written on it:

What do you mean!!

Smiling Danny wrote back an answer and threw the piece of paper back at Dash before turning back to his own work. He’d found a good section explaining his problem and was in the middle of writing down an answer when a second ball of paper hit him.

Unrolling the piece of paper Danny raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Dash. Dash was looking at Danny with an expression of anticipation. Turning back to the paper Danny wrote back and threw it back to Dash.

For the next couple of hours Danny and Dash threw papers at each other, Dash asking for help without writing the word “help” and Danny, taking a leaf out of his sisters tutoring book, gave Dash hints how to solve his problems without giving away the answer. At one point Dash got annoyed at Danny’s vague answer and rose from his seat ready to ether hit or threaten Danny. But to Danny’s surprise and relief Dash sat down again and wrote back a note that he hit Danny in the face with asking him to explain a bit better.

Danny had almost forgotten what time it was when a chill went up his spine and a blue mist escaped his mouth. Straightening he looked around ears tensed as he listened. A moment later the door to the room opened and two girls stuck there heads in, one of them Danny recognized as Dannielle.

She waved at Danny and pointed at her wrist, where she wasn’t wearing a watch but Danny caught her meaning. He nodded and packed up his things. Before he left Dash threw a ball of paper at Danny. Reading it he smiled. “See you at school.” Danny said dropping the paper in the trash bin beside the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Celebrating my birthday today so I'm uploading this chapert ahead of time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walking home from the library Dannielle breafly tells her cousin of what happend in the time she'd been gone.

Dannielle was standing outside of the library her hands moving in front of her as she talked to her friend, a dark skinned girl with thick curly hair, dressed in a thick winter coat. Before Danny got to meet the girl Dannielle said goodbye to her and she left in the opposite direction. “Friend of yours?” Danny asked walking up beside her.

Smiling Dannielle nodded. “My best friend, her names Amanda she’s mute so she doesn’t make friends that easily.” She explained as they started walking towards the suburbs.

“Sounds like an interesting friend.” Danny said looking back at the other girl. “How did you know I was in the library?” he asked after they’d walked in silence for a moment.

Dannielle rolled her eyes. “Ghost sense, dah. I felt you flying over the school before and saw you go to the library.” She put her hands in her pockets and looked up at Danny a big grin on her face.

Smiling back at her Danny took a closer look at his cousin. She was still shorter than him and compared to how   
she’d looked the last time he saw her she was practically glowing with energy. Unlike him she didn’t have any bags under her eyes or any questionable scars on her face or neck, she walked confidently with her back straight and head held high the complete opposite of Danny. “What happened to you after we saved you from Vlad?” Danny asked.

Slowing her pace Danny slowed down to match her speed, a dark shadow had fallen over Dannielle’s face. Biting her lower lip Dannielle avoided meeting Danny’s eyes. “Do you really want to know, it’s not that great a story?” She whispered.

Shrugging Danny looked up at the gray sky. “You don’t have to tell me, I was just curious on how you came to live with Mrs Oswald.” He felt Dannielle walking behind him more than he saw her.

It was some time before Dannielle spoke. “I lived on the street for maybe 5 months after you and Valeri saved me, you know doing what I had been doing up until the thing with Dad.” Her voice trailed off at the mention of Vlad. 

Not wanting to push her Danny stayed quiet and was rewarded for his patience when Dannielle continued. “It was pretty easy to begin with. I’m a master shoplifter after all. I made some friends on the streets and it was like a big adventure. That was until I got caught stealing and none of my friends tried to help me.” Tasting the bitterness coming from Dannielle Danny wished he could have been there to help her. 

Walking up to walk beside Danny she continued. “Things got a bit complicated when the police didn’t find any records of a Dannielle Fenton existing in the US, they even thought I might have been an illegal immigrant once. Eventually I got put in foster care.” Sighing she looked up at Danny. “Oh Boy let me tell you, the system is so lousy I ran away from my first home and reported the second to the police.”

Looking at his cousin in surprise Danny could only imagen what the people she ran away from thought when she’d just disappeared like a ghost. “Got any details?” he asked.

Nodding Dannielle’s eyes moved to look at the sky. “The first couple had three other kids living at their place and there were some strict rules. No loud music, be home right after school, get above D or there is no supper for a week, finish your chores or you’ll sleep on the floor and so on.” Danny found himself staring at her. “I know sounds like a bad movie but I was okay with it, I had a roof over my head, got a decent meal every day and some were to sleep. The only reason I ran away was because the others didn’t have such a great time so we all left one night and didn’t come back before the place had been turned inside and out and the entire thing was exposed.”

Danny whistled. “If that place was so bad how come you reported the second place to the police?” He asked wanting to get more details on how she and the others had gotten away from the first place and at the same time curios as to what could have been bad enough for Dannielle to call the police.

“The second place was nice, I didn’t have to sleep on a matrass on the floor, the other kids there liked it to, the rules were a bit more relaxed and everyone was happy.” Her face darkened. “But that was only a facade. I found out the real price for that happiness when the man of the house, so to speak, tried to crawl in to my bed one night.” Danny could hear her knuckles pop. “I gave him what he deserved and then reported his sorry ass to the police, if the others hadn’t been such cowards he would be spending time in jail right now but instead he is doing community service.”

A soft green glow illuminated Dannielle’s angry eyes. Placing a cautious hand on her shoulder Danny met Dannielle’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, they didn’t have to, Danny couldn’t imagen what his cousin felt but he knew right from wrong and what she’d been through was wrong on too many levels.

Without any warning Dannielle threw her arms around Danny and hugged him. Unsure of how to act he patted her on the back. “I’m glad you are here.” She said tightening her hold. “No one can really understand me, not like you can.” She sighed and looked up at Danny before letting go of him. “I was placed at Mrs Oswald after that and living with her is a lot better than the others. You are lucky, you don’t have to deal with the whole system.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Danny said pulling Dannielle’s hat down over her eyes. “I have a whole different variety of problems to deal with. Who I live with is the least of my worries at the moment.” She pushed up the hat to look at Danny who smiled back at her. “But the good thing with all of this is that I found you.”

Blushing Dannielle punched Danny’s arm hard enough to bruise. “I was the one who found you remember.” She said picking up the pace. “Besides I was never far away, if you ever needed some real help I was close by.”

“Could have helped if I knew that.” He said jogging to keep up.

They didn’t as much walk back to Mrs Oswald as they raced each other back to the house. Danny lost the race because of his still hurting right leg but Dannielle was the one gasping for air when they reached the front door. Opening it Dannielle shouted. “We’re Home!” in to the house, limping in after her Danny closed the door behind them.

“Good! Dinner will be done in ten minutes.” Mrs Oswald shouted back from the kitchen over the sound of cooking. She looked out into the entrance hall and her expression changed to something Danny couldn’t place. “Did you see Cody on your way home?” she asked.

“No, I only found Danny at the library.” Dannielle smiled. “What’s for dinner?” she asked putting her jacket on a hook.

“Beef and pressed potatoes. Go on and wash up I’ll call you when dinner is ready.” She met Danny’s eyes for a moment. “You got your homework assignments from your friends?” she asked. Nodding Danny put up his jacket beside Dannielle’s. “Good. Ten minutes then.” She said and went back to her cooking.

Taking Danny’s arm Dannielle pulled him towards the stairs. “Come on, I want to show you my room.” She said and practically dragged Danny up to her room.

Dannielle’s room reminded Danny of his own. There was a slight mess, in the form of books lying strewn around the floor together with a pile of cloths that hadn’t made it to the clothesbasket. There was a large map of the stars pined to one wall together whit a poster of Dumpty Humpty. The desk was the same kind as in Danny’s room down stairs, the only difference being that Dannielle’s was covered in papers, books, old homework assignments and snacks.

Flopping down on her bed Dannielle smiled. “What do you think; Mrs O gave me that map for my birthday.”

Sitting down backwards on the only chair in the room Danny nodded. “It looks nice.” Then he glanced at Dannielle. “When’s your birthday, is it the same as mine or the day you were made?” he asked curiosity getting the better of him.

“Nether. My birthday is the same day you and Valeri saved me.” She sat up cross-legged. “That was the first day I was free to live my life so that’s the day a chose to be my birthday.”

Nodding Danny’s eyes moved over the room again without seeing it. If he were to choose a new birthday it would be the day he became Phantom, the day of the accident. “Who’s Cody?” he asked absently.

Making an exasperated noise Dannielle laid back down. “Cody is Mr and Mrs O’s real son. He’s a year older than me and a prick, he always gets in to trouble to get Mrs O’s attention. He doesn’t like the foster kids that gets placed here, he’s mostly the reason they leave.”

Leaning forward Danny crossed his arms over the back of the chair. “What’s it like living here?” he asked wondering if he was going to have a problem with this Cody.

“If you ignore Cody it’s great. Mrs O works as a receptionist at the Grand Hotel here in town. She truly cares for the kids under her roof, she is strict when it comes to the rules but after some time she stops looking over your shoulder. Her husband Mr Oswald is a navy officer stationed in Hawaii, it’s not often he comes home, he did once this summer. Turns out he’s not that interested in the foster kids living here, he spent most of the time with Cody but I got the impression that he didn’t care for us because he knew that we wouldn’t be around too long.” There was the sound of the front door opening and closing and the two of them turned their heads towards the open door listening.

“Cody?” Danny asked hearing a boys wavering voice coming from down stairs.

“Yupp.” Dannielle confirmed. “Bet yah he’s not going to like you.”

Dannielle’s prediction came true when Cody, a lean well-built teenager with short cut brown hair and a squared jaw, stopped in front of the open door. His eyes narrowed as he took in Danny’s appearance, from the shadows under his eyes and small red scars still visible on his face, to the worn cloths and thin shape of Danny’s arms. He smirked and looked over at Dannielle on the bed. “Mom told you not to bring your street friends in to the house.” He drawled.

Both Danny and Dannielle held back their laughter annoying the hell out of Cody. “What so funny?” He asked the muscles on his arms flexing.

Exchanging glances Dannielle nodded at Danny. Getting up from his seat Danny walked over to Cody. The kid’s hazel eyes were on the same level as his, trying to borrow in to Danny’s icy blue once. He smiled, “Hi, name’s Danny, I will be staying here for a couple of weeks, it’s nice to meet you.” He said in a falsely friendly tone giving Cody his hand to shake.

“Cody.” The younger boy sniffed and took Danny’s hand. “You another of my mom’s social cases?” he asked trying to break Danny’s hand with his hard grip.

Having expected Cody’s response to a simple handshake Danny applied a small amount of pressure of his own. “I’m no freeloader if that’s what you’re asking.” He replied never braking eye contact.

Cody put more pressure on Danny’s hand only to be matched by the same. “You are all freeloaders as far as I’m concerned.” He growled and looked down at their hands.

“Sorry is my grip to hard.” Danny asked pressing harder on Cody’s hand.

Swearing Cody let go of Danny. “Dose every handshake have to be a test of strength or something.” He asked shaking his hand and glaring at Danny.

Shrugging Danny sat back down on the chair. “You shouldn’t start something you can’t handle.” He answered in a matter of fact tone completely ignoring Cody’s presses.

“Whatever, mom said to tell you dinner’s ready. She wants you to help set the table Dannielle.” He said turning away from the room. “Tell the freak he better clean up before dinner, who knows where he’s been.” With that Cody left walking to his own room.

Getting up Dannielle stretched. “Don’t take it personally, Cody’s just a jerk.” She said to Danny moving towards the door.

“A jerk close to finding that his pants will fall down in front of a pretty girl very soon.” Danny growled considering all the pranks and practical jokes he could pull on Cody without being seen. Rubbing at his eyes he got up from his seat again. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen, I have things to put away.” He said hoisting his back pack on to his shoulder before he simply sank through the floor down in to his own room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bit hard to wright and it's just going to be harder going from here.  
> I apoligize for the late upload school got in the way.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First night at Mrs Oswalds house and Danny has already gotten a new enemy.

Sitting down at his desk after dinner Danny started up his computer and put his phone to charge. He was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, the food had been amazing in comparison to his mom’s cooking. He’d never starved at home but sometimes he’d just wanted to eat the food and not have his dinner try and eat him. Taking out all his school books from his bags Danny started on his physics homework that was due to be handed in the next day.

He nodded of halfway through the history homework and would have slept the whole night through if there hadn’t been a soft knock at his door. “Danny. Lights out in five minutes.” Mrs Oswald said opening the door.

Straightening from the thick history book he’d used as a pillow Danny glanced at the clock on his computer. 10:55 pm and a message from Tucker. “Yeah, five min.” He yawned and got up from the chair stretching.

“You fell asleep doing your homework?” Mrs Oswald asked giving Danny a soft smile.

Rubbing his eyes Danny closed his school book. “Can’t help it, the French revolution bores me to death.” Digging through his bag he found his toothbrush.

“Cody said the same thing last semester when he was doing the revolution in history.” Mrs Oswald said getting out of Danny’s way. “I’ll give you a ride to school tomorrow, we can figure out the busses next week.”

Not knowing what to say Danny gave her a smile before going in to the bathroom to brush his teethes.

 

Five minutes later Danny’s room was dark and quiet, a curled up figure laying under the blankets but it wasn’t Danny. Floating by the window he was taking in his handiwork, two years of sneaking out on nightly patrols had taught him how to make the bed look occupied. Phasing through the outside wall he flew up to Dannielle’s window. She was sitting in bed her phone illuminating her face.

Knocking on the window she turned around and gave him a raced eyebrow. Sticking his head through Danny smiled. “You want to come on a patrol with me?” he asked.

Biting her lip Dannielle looked down at her phone. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m not a hero like you.” She said glancing back at Danny through her bangs.

Smiling Danny nodded. “It’s okay.” He said, “Do me a favor thou, call me if they find out I’m gone.” 

“I can do that.” Dannielle smiled. Before she knew it Danny was gone from her room and speeding through the night sky towards Amity Park where he met up with Sam and Tucker on their scooters. 

 

Returning to his room at 3:32 am Danny sank down on top of his bed. Turning back to Fenton he gripped the edge of his blanket and rolled over becoming a sleeping burrito before he could so much as kick the pillows and books he’d used as a dummy out of the bed. He’d planned to return much earlier but a ghost haunting the cinema changed his plans. There hadn’t been much of a fight, more of a cat and mouse chase that ended with Sam catching the ghost in her thermos.

After that they had gone to Fenton Works to send the ghost back in to the ghost zoon but Danny’s parents had been in the lab making the whole thing take much longer than needed. Finally being able to rest Danny was grateful for the dreamless sleep.

When the alarm rang in the morning it didn’t survive its first bip, Danny’s hand came down on it to hard and the plastic casing broke with a satisfying crunch. Rolling over Danny buried his head in his pillow and went back to sleep.

The next alarm to go off was his phones, growling Danny rolled out of bed and forced himself to be careful when he turned off the alarm so as not to break the phone. Sitting down on his bed he was about to fall back to sleep when there was a knock on the door. “Time to get up, breakfast’s on the table.” Mrs Oswald said.

Grumbling an answer Danny got up and looked around for some clothes. He had just put on a pair of jeans and was looking around for a t-shirt when the door to his room opened. “Hey Fenton you awake yet breakfast...”

Bam!

Danny had reacted instinctively slamming the door in Cody’s face. There was a shout of pain that echoed the taste in Danny’s mouth. Danny could hear Mrs Oswald in the hall outside talking to a loudly swearing Cody. “He broke my fucking nose mom!” Cody growled.

“I don’t think it’s that bad.” Mrs Oswald said. Grabbing an old t-shirt from his bag Danny tugged it on his heart racing. “Danny!” Mrs Oswald called and knocked on his door, “Can you come out here.” She said.

The fog of sleep had completely lifted from Danny’s thoughts and he swallowed his own worries before opening the door to his room. Cody was standing opposite the door a hand pressed over his bleeding nose his eyes shooting daggers at Danny. Mrs Oswald gave Danny a raised eyebrow. “Would you like to explain what happened?” she asked in a calm tone that still managed to convey her displeasure with Danny.

Shrugging Danny looked at Cody. “He didn’t knock.” 

“And for that you break my nose!” Cody snarled his words mangled.

Shaking his head Danny met Cody’s eyes. “Sorry I didn’t mean to slam the door in your face, maybe next time you’ll remember to knock.” He said turning back to his room and started shoving down his school books in a bag.

Mrs Oswald sighed. “Breakfasts on the table, if you don’t hurry Dannielle will eat it all.” She said before turning to her son. “Come on I’ll get you some ice for that.” She said and they both left.

As soon as they were gone Danny sank down on the floor beside his bed. Taking deep calming breaths he got his racing heart under control. Tugging on his convers he went through what had just happened. He’d been standing in the middle of the room wearing only a pair of jeans, Cody had walked in. He’d only gotten a short look but he’d seen the scars on Danny’s chest and back and then Danny had slammed the door in his face. He reacted in a similar way in school before and after gym class if anyone walked in on him changing. He wasn’t embarrassed at his scars he just didn’t like when people started asking questions or stared, he couldn’t exactly explain them all.  
Bowing his head, Danny calmed himself down. He was sorry he’d hurt the twat but didn’t feel unjust for slamming the door in his face. It wasn’t his fault. Pushing himself up from the floor he checked that everything he needed was in his backpack and then left the room.

Sitting beside his half sleeping cousin Danny got himself a bowl of cornflakes. Cody glared at him over the breakfast table a piece of toast in his mouth and a pack of ice pressed against his nose.

“You want juice or coco?” Mrs Oswald asked filling Dannielle’s glass with orange juice.

Swallowing his mouthful Danny glanced up at the woman. “You got any coffee?” he asked feeling the energy kick he’d gotten a moment before subsid letting the fog of sleep take over his brain again.

“Sure. Cody what you want?” She asked walking around the table.

“Nobing.” Cody growled.

Mrs Oswald placed the juice on the table in front of her son before walking over to the coffee machine and started loading it. Finishing his bowl of cornflakes Danny looked up at Cody and rolled his eyes. “What?” the younger kid asked.

“Nothing.” Danny said taking a piece of toast and started putting peanut butter on it. “I would just recommend that you lay down, it will stop the bleeding faster.”

“Yah sure.” Cody responded poring orange juice in to his glass.

“How do you know that?” Dannielle asked blinking up at Danny with sleepy eyes.

“Broke my nose not long ago. And it’s simple physics if you think about it.” He said between bites of toast, he hated toast.

“I could break your nose again and you could show me.” Cody said getting a wacke on the head from his mother.

“How did you break your nose?” Mrs Oswald asked and Danny got the impression she wasn’t asking out of curiosity.

Shrugging Danny took a large bite of his toast. “Got hit in the face playing football.” He said retracting the part where he’d been tied to the goal post and got used as target practice by the football team. He’d let some of the balls hit him and used his ghost powers to lessen the impact of the hard balls. After they’d tired of their game the football team with Dash in the lead left Danny tied to the poste intending for him to be stuck there all night but Danny just phased free and flew home.

“You play in the school team?” Mrs Oswald asked pouring up two mugs of coffee handing Danny one. “Dannielle’s in the high school hockey team.” She said giving Dannielle a proud smile.

“Team’s already full; anyways I don’t like the game that much.” Danny responded drinking his coffee black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked wrighting this Cody is going to be an ass


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking that his day can't get any more anoying Danny gets to school hoping that no one will bother him for the rest of the day.  
> But his day hos only began.

_“Darling you can’t stop it, all you can do is accept the inevitable.”_   
_“...”_   
_“One step and it will be all over you don’t have to feel this way anymore.”_   
_“…”_

 

As she’d promised Mrs Oswald gave Danny a ride to school. The drive took less than an hour and they sat in silence listening to the radio. The news were doing a special on suicides and what could be done to prevent them after a kid had jumped from a bridge the evening before.

Pulling up to the curb in front of Casper high Danny pulled up his hood. “Do you want me to pick you up after school?” Mrs Oswald asked.

Danny looked back at her, his hand on the door handle. “I’m fine getting back on my own. But thanks.” He said and before anything else could be said he was out of the car and walked in to the steady stream of students walking to school.

Heading for his locker Danny could see Sam and Tucker stand beside their own lockers and opened his mouth to call them when a shiver went up his spine and he snapped around in time to see Vlad Master cut through the crowd that walked on as if he wasn’t even there.

Taking a step back Danny did some quick thinking and didn’t put up a fight when Vlad gripped Danny around the shoulders and pulled him in to a janitor’s closet. “The hell is wrong with you?” Danny hissed pushing Vlad away. “How come no one noticed you?” He asked curiously. “How come no one saw you take me?”

Shaking his head Vlad crossed his arms. “Child you still got a lot to learn. Now show me the medicine box.” He said eyes glowing a faint red in the dark space.

Sighing Danny picked out the box from his backpack. “I haven’t taken them yet if that’s why you are here.” He said.

“Then take them now.” Vlad prompted looking down on Danny making him feel like he was a dog being trained to do trick on command. “Or do you want me to help you.” Vlad asked sounding more eager to shove the pills down Danny’s throat than he should.

Opening the box Danny put the pills in the palm of his hand and threw them into his mouth swallowing. “Satisfied?” he asked sticking his tongue out at Vlad.

Pinching the bridge of his nose Vlad sighed. “Why do you have to be so difficult?” He looked Danny in the eyes. “Can’t you understand that I’m trying to help you?”

“Help me. Please. You called social services on my parents and sent me in to the system. In what messed up version of a world is that helping?” Danny growled keeping his voice low so as not to attract attention from the students walking past the closet.

Danny saw the older man’s face change and he rolled his eyes knowing what would come next. “You don’t have to be in the system, my mansion has plenty of room for you, you wouldn’t even have to hide your powers living with me.”

“And all I have to do is renounce my idiot father. No thank you.” Danny turned away from Vlad and turning invisible he walked through the door and in to the crowd of students.

Sam and Tucker were both standing in front of Danny’s locker waiting for him when Danny turned visible right in front of their noses. “Holy mother of… Danny stop sneaking up on us like that.” Sam hissed punching Danny’s shoulder.

“Did you have trouble with Dash at the door or something?” Tucker asked rubbing his tired eyes.

“No, I ran in to a ghost is all.” Danny said unlocking his locker and started to put his things away.

Raising a perfect black eyebrow Sam gave Danny a hard look. “What happened to the ghost, you got it in your thermos or something?”

Sighing Danny slammed his locker closed at the same time the school bell rang. “No I didn’t have to.” He said annoyed.

They walked off heading for the math class room. “What’s the matter, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or something?” Tucker asked giving Sam a meaningful look to back off.

Pressing a hand to his head Danny glanced over at his friends. They were both as tired as he was judging by the shadows under their eyes. “Sorry.” He said looking at Sam. “I ran in to Vlad, or more accurately he ran in to me. Nothing happened and that’s all.” He said not going in to details.

Taking Danny’s hand Sam stared in to his eyes. “I know you are going through a lot right now. But things will be easier if you talk to us. We are your friends.” Her hand tightened around Danny’s.

“Spoken like a girl.” Tucker said and had to jump out of the way of Sam’s well aimed kick.

“I’ll show you who’s a girl.” She growled.

“No thanks.” Tucker said walking a bit away from her and Danny.

Tightening his hand around Sam’s for a moment she looked up at Danny. “You know Tucker is right you are a girl after all.” He said and had to jump out of the way of her heavy combat boot or else get his feet’s crushed. He grinned. “Just kidding, just kidding. Come on we’ll be late for math.”

Tucker opened his mouth to speak but Sam held up a finger in front of him. “One more word and I’ll poste that embarrassing picture of you from last week all over the school.”

“Wasn’t that an embarrassing picture of Danny?” Tucker asked hurrying to keep up with Danny.

“What sort of picture?” Danny asked looking from Tucker to Sam who both was very quiet all of a sudden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is finally finished, and I may take a short break before starting to wright the next on, which is going to requier a lot more planing seeing as it is heavier on the Criminal Mindes front.  
> But don't worry there are plenty of chapters in this story so you might not even notice my break. ^^


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuck in the confinde space of the Casper High for the next seven hours Danny and Tucker are both feeling the drawbacks of going to bed late the night before, Danny more than Tucker.

Try as they might neither Tucker nor Danny could stay awake during math and only thanks to Sam jabbing them in the sides with her pen woke them up before they got in to any trouble with Mr Lancer. When the bell rang everyone hurried to pack away their math books and go to the next classroom. Danny was almost at the door when Mr Lancer called for him to stay behind.

Praying that it was nothing Danny stayed back watching his classmates walk out of the room. Mr Lancer closed the door when they’d left. “Now Mr Fenton.” He began and Danny drew back. “Please Daniel I’m not going to punish you for sleeping in my class Again. I was wondering why you haven’t been in school these last three days?”

Relaxing Danny glanced at the clock, he had five minutes to get to his locker get his social study book and get to his next class. “Short story I was sick.” He said itching to get out of the classroom.

“Then your parents should have reported your absents to the school.” Mr Lancer said giving Danny that look he always had when he thought a student was lying.

Sighing Danny rubbed at his eyes. “If I could give you any details I would. I got sick after that school trip, you can ask Sam or Tucker they’ll tell you. My parents didn’t report me sick because the probably didn’t know.”

Mr Lancer raised an eyebrow. “Go on why wouldn’t they know that their own son was home sick?” he asked sharp eyes taking in Danny’s appearance more closely.

Biting his lower lip Danny turned his face away from Mr Lancer. “You have to ask Mayor Masters about that. Can I go now I don’t want to miss my next class.”

The teacher was quiet for a moment before nodding. “Okay go on, and don’t forget to hand in your homework or I will have a talk to your parents about summer school.”

Danny was out of the classroom before Mr Lancer got to the end of his sentence. Sam and Tucker had waited outside the door, Sam holding a pair of her Fenton headphones to her ears. They didn’t say anything as they walked to their lockers, got their books and sat down on their seats in the social study classroom before the teacher showed up.

To his annoyance, Danny fell asleep during that lesson as well even if he tried to stay awake he couldn’t keep his eyes open. In the end it was the bell that woke him. He got through lunch without falling asleep in his food or getting bullied by Dash for that matter.

Physics had always been one of Danny’s hard subject mostly because it involved a lot of math. He found himself spacing out during most of the lesson and in the end looking at his notebook he tore out the piece of paper which he had written on, the words were meaningless without proper context.

Sam helped him stay awake during biology class and when the final bell of the day rang Danny, Sam and Tucker were the first one out the doors. Danny didn’t bother to stop by his locker before he walked out of the school taking in the crisp autumn air.

“What’s the hurry?” Tucker asked walking up to Danny. Tucker had stopped by his locker and was putting on his jacket.

“Needed some air.” Danny said rubbing his face. “Felt like I was going to fall asleep on my feet’s in there.”

Looking at the schools open doors Tucker scratched his chin. “You don’t think Nocturne is using his sleep powers on you?” he asked.

Blinking at his friend Danny thought about what he’d just implied and then shook his head. “Naa, I haven’t had much sleep lately.” He said but thinking back he’d gotten more sleep the last four days than he’d ever gotten the last two years.

Walking out of the school Sam threw Danny’s hoodie at him. “I don’t care if you aren’t bothered by the cold, you make me frees looking like that.” She said buttoning up her coat. “Who’s up for Nasty burger, I need something warm and away from my parents?”

“Lead the way.” Danny said putting on his hoodie.

They went to the burger joint together but Danny didn’t stay any longer than it took him to drink two mugs of coffee. “I have homework to do.” He said excusing himself before walking out to the back of the place where he once more turning in to Phantom.

Flying around the cold blue sky Danny’s head cleared. Getting back to Wishing Hill he made his way to the library and found the study room he’d been in the day before, the only difference was that it was completely empty.

He sat down in a corner and pulled up his homework. He’d gotten an earful from his teachers for not handing in his homework but had as always ignored it. The door to the room opened and Danny looked up to see Dash come in. They glared at each other but didn’t say anything.

As Danny was searching his brain for the answer to his biology homework a paper plane landed in front of him. Picking it up he glanced over at Dash, the other boy sat at the opposite end of the same table. Unfolding the plane Danny read the note that was written there.

With a sigh he wrote back an answer and sent the plane flying back to Dash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, can just as well say that im putting a lot of work in to the character developments in this story.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to adjust to a new rutine can be hard but is important to keep something constant in life.

Just like the day before Danny helped Dash with his homework by sending notes back and forth. The only difference was that instead of throwing rolled up balls of paper they were throwing paper planes at each other. Danny learned two things during that time. One; Dash knew how to fold a lot of different kinds of paper planes. And two; Dash couldn’t spell.

Studying and at the same time tutoring Dash, Danny lost track of time and it wasn’t until his phone rang that he realized what time it was. Swearing loudly Danny apologized to Mrs Oswald who’d been the one calling him. Packing his things in a hurry Danny throw the books and papers in his bag before leaving the library.

Instead of running back to the house Danny snuck in between two buildings and turned in to Phantom. Landing in his room Danny changed back and walked invisible to the front door, opened it and turned visible at the same time. “Sorry I’m late.” He said closing the door.

Mrs Oswald poked her head out of the kitchen. “That was fast.” She said looking at her watch. “Didn’t you say you were at the library?” she asked her eyes narrowing.

“On my way from the library.” Danny corrected her.

Nodding Mrs Oswald jerked her head in the direction of Danny’s room. “Put away your things and clean up, we’ve already started eating.” Danny could smell the cooked food walking past the kitchen and his stomach growled.

However good the food tasted Danny kept getting the taste of BBQ sauce in his mouth. Cody was sitting opposite Danny, his nose a nice shade of purple and red. Glancing at his cousin Danny could tell she tasted Cody’s anger as well. “You might have angered him this morning.” Dannielle said after dinner when she and Danny were helping Mrs Oswald clean up.

“It was his own fault.” Danny repeated but wished there was a lock on his door to keep Cody out.

Shrugging Dannielle gave Danny a smile. “Either you will leave because of him or he will snap and hit you. My money is on him snapping.” She said.

“I don’t make bets, I always end up losing them.” Danny said finishing his chores. He walked off to his room and once again sat down in front of his desk starting the computer.

Instead of hitting the books like he’d done the day before Danny started up Doom 2 and put on his headphones. Tucker greeted him before he’d even typed in his user name and password. “Thought you were doing that social study homework?” Danny greeted his game savvy friend.

“I finished it after you left nasty burgers. You up for some Esperanto practice in the Andromeda galaxy. I’m online with some geeks from the west coast.” Tucker said and Danny could hear him smashing his keys.

Getting online Danny smiled. “Be prepared to get wrecked.” He said in Esperanto. Danny like Tucker and Sam liked playing videogames, he and Tucker would spend nights playing. The new version of Doom meant that they got to know a lot of new people, even if it was just the persona they were playing. What made the gaming community great, was that most were geeks and as geeks they had made Esperanto their unofficial language, making practice Esperanto much easier.

Danny and Sam had both started learning the language after their meeting with Wulf but only Danny and Tucker were actually learning it in school. Sam took a crash course and got some of her internet friends to help her learn it.

However gaming and learning Esperanto at the same time meant that they had to pause and look up words they didn’t know and speaking it out loud was always tricky especially when there was someone online who liked to correct them on their pronunciation. By 9:43 Tucker called for a break, he’d been drinking energy drinks all the time they’d been playing.

Doing some inventory management Danny heard Sam log on to the chat. “Hi Sam what’s up?” he asked forcing himself to speak English again.

“Oh nothing really, Schoolwork’s finished for the week, got the Doom 2 DLC, my parents just found out about your situation and this Ghost radar is pointing me at a big tiger ghost running rampant on the streets.” Sam said in a nonchalant tone.

“How did they find out about that?” Danny asked, a feeling that Sam had told them but it wasn’t something she would do.

“I don’t know they just asked me about it when I got home today. And didn’t you hear me, there’s a ghost terrorizing the citizens of Amity Park. Get your ass over here!” She sounded annoyed.

Getting up from his seat Danny looked around the room. He couldn’t do the dummy trick it was too early. But he couldn’t just leave that would get him in to trouble. “I’m on my way, just keep it occupied till I get there.” Danny told Sam before taking of his headphones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like ending things in a clifhanger but I may have to. Don''t worry thou I'm thinking of uploading the next chapter this weekernd.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is not your everyday goth, she is not afraid to get her hads dirty but as always will reserv her right to complain, and aparently so do a lot of the inhabitance of Amity Park.

Firing her wrist ray Sam dodged when the Tiger ghost launched itself at her. Rolling to one side she blasted it with another of the Fenton weapons. Hitting the ghost square on the chest she ran towards the people, who the ghost had been attacking, at the other end of the street. 

She hated playing the hero, that was Danny’s job, hers was to save him when he got in over his head. The ghost recovered from Sam’s last hit faster than she’d liked and a woman behind her screamed.

“Oh god we’re going to die.” “Do something you are a ghost hunter aren’t you!?” “Where’s that Phantom when you need him.” The people cried behind Sam and she felt sorry for them. At least she had chosen to face the tiger ghost, they hadn’t.

The big tiger pounced across the empty street avoiding all the blasts of anti-ghost rays Sam fired at it. People screamed when the tiger flung itself at Sam. She however stayed calm, twisting her hips she flung out with a heavy booted kick that connected with the tigers face and sent it rolling away from her.

The people fell silent and even the ghost looked at Sam in chock. “Damn! That’s hot.” Said the familiar echoing voice of Danny Phantom beside her.

A nerve twitched in Sam’s face and she elbowed the half ghost as he was turning visible. “You’re late.” She growled but her face felt oddly warm.

“You had things under control.” Danny said giving Sam a boyish grin. “I’ll take things from here.” He said floating over to the tiger ghost that now had all its attention on him.

The crowd behind Sam started to cheer; their hero was giving them a show. Smiling Sam assumed an relaxed stance both hands on her ghost ray her thoughts clinging to Danny’s words. “Why are you cheering on that monster!” A man in the crowd shouted.

Everyone turned to see the speaker. A young man glared at them an angry red mark on the side of his face. “Or did you forget that he went on a rampage last Sunday shooting down innocent people out of the blue.”

There was a flash of green light and the sound of crumbling concrete. Sam glanced over at Danny and the tiger ghost as the rest of the crowd murmured remembering the news report that Monday. Danny wasn’t having any trouble fighting the ghost, he just couldn’t get it to stand still long enough for him to catch it in his thermos.

Sam could feel when the crowds mood changed. One moment it was happy and relieved the next it was angry. “He’s right, Phantom always destroys public property.” “There were never any ghost around before he came.” “He kidnapped the old mayor.” “There is always attacks on the high school, I am not sending my kids there.” Sam glared at the man who’d turned the crowd against Danny.

“What he ever done to you?” she asked doing her best to keep her anger in check. These people didn’t know how much Danny beat himself up every time he was too late. They didn’t know what was really happening, how could they. All they saw was a ghost fighting other ghosts and winning.

The young man lifted his chin. “He left my fiancée to bleed out last Sunday.” Hatred flared in his eyes. “What did we ever do to him to deserve it? When did we ever ask him to invite all his ghost friends to this town and make it the freak zone?”

Turning her back on the fight Sam took a step in to the angry crowd and glared up at the man. “I’m sorry for your fiancée but you can’t blame him for everything. Amity Park would still be the most haunted place in the world even without him around.”

Leaning forward the man met Sam’s eyes. “What’s your connection to him, you his sidekick or something?”

Forcing herself not to punch the idiot in the face she swallowed her anger. “I’m not his sidekick. I’m the one who kicked that tiger ghost in the face and unlike the rest of you, I can actually protect myself from ghosts.” She’d turned speaking to the people around her. “If you don’t have anything better to do than complain I suggest you go home. Who knows the tiger might decide to attack us again and then you’ll be happy you weren’t here.” The crowd blinked at Sam and the young man before realizing the truth in her argument.

Everyone scattered even the young man who glared back at her giving Sam the feeling that they hadn’t seen the last of him. Turning back to watch the fight, she lifted her gun to point it at the tiger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I didn't mange to post it this weekend sorry, but hey I've uploaded some art that goes with the stories as well, (Im an artist formoast not a wrighter).   
> Enjoy


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment of calm before the storm of life continues.

“Crap, I forgot about that.” Danny said attaching his thermos to the socket to the ghost portal. He’d gotten the tiger ghost and later also the box ghost who’d decided that haunting a pottery store was evil somehow. Taking care of boxy hadn’t been as difficult as trying to capture the tiger but he left more marks on Danny than the tiger. “People really do think I was the one hurting them. My powers are green not pink.” He said flushing the two ghosts out in to the ghost zone.

“Afraid so.” Sam said getting her first aid kit out of her bag. They’d checked the house before entering, finding Danny’s parents in the Ops center they’d gone down to the lab were everything was a mess. “And I don’t think people notice the different colors in ghosts powers, most of them are green you know.”

Taking the thermos Danny looked down in to it. “They aren’t just green, they all have a different shade of green.” He capped the thermos and looked over at Sam who pointed at an empty spot on a desk.

“And you can see the differences?” she asked watching Danny sit down on the desk, they’d done this many times before. “Show me the cuts.” She said when he was seated.

Sighing Danny unzipped the top of his jumpsuit and shrugged out of it. “I wouldn’t say that I can see the differences, most of the time I’m too busy to notice. But the photos we have shows the difference.”

Nodding Sam went over the cuts and bruises on Danny’s chest. She felt guilty, he’d only gotten hurt because she’d been to slow. The heavy box the box ghost had thrown at her had been full of pots and plates. When Danny shielded her with his body they’d broken and left him with shallow cuts as well as bruises. “How much does it hurt?” She asked.

Shrugging Danny scratched a small scrape on his chin. “Not that much, I’ll feel worse tomorrow.” He said. “Did you get hurt?” He asked getting Sam to meet his eyes.

Shaking her head Sam got a cotton swab and the disinfectant. “No, Unlike you I can actually dodge.” She said getting to work cleaning the cuts. “How long do you recon it’ll take for these to heal?”

“A day.” Danny said getting a cotton swab and some disinfectant. “What more did they say on the news after the fight with Vlad?” He asked wondering if he were in for another period of being hated by everyone.

He twitched when the alcohol stung and got a look from Sam. “They only mentioned the fight, said something about broken windows and then went on to the juicy part about you attacking people.”

A muscle twitched in Danny’s face. “Vlad is probably trying to quiet down the whole thing.” He said trying to think of what else his nemesis could have done to damage his reputation.

“Likely, Thou I think the media likes to paint you out as the villain. But people should look at the facts and truths before believing everything they hear on the tv.” She made Danny turn so she could inspect his back. “We live in a world where everything the media says is true. But if people only look at the facts they will know that you tried to save them.”

Sighing Danny looked over his shoulder at Sam. “But the news were right you know. Vlad wouldn’t have hurt those people if I hadn’t shown up to help Valeri.” He bit his lip. “He constructed the perfect plan to force me away from the fight. He knew I couldn’t let anyone get hurt because of me.” Turning away from Sam Danny bit down on the guilt. “I let them down. I wasn’t strong enough.”

Putting down her cotton swabs Sam put her arms around Danny. “Stop it. You can’t beat yourself up over things you had no control over.” She knew the words didn’t change anything, she knew Danny would keep beating himself up because he’d failed to protect people. But she had to say them.

Placing his own hands over Sam’s they stayed like that, she warming his back, he fighting back his emotions. He could feel Sam’s breath against his neck, could feel her heart beat against his back. He had been able to protect her, she was safe tonight because he’d taken the punches.

Concentrating on his victories Danny leaned his head back against Sam. She was safe, Valeri was alive, the couple he’d first gotten to were safe. Shivering at the memories of Chicago he reminded himself that people were alive after that, thanks to him, all thou they could all have gotten hurt if Sam hadn’t shot him.

Breathing in the scent of her hair Danny felt his shoulders relax. She was the one who’d saved everyone from him in Chicago, she’d been the one to keep the ghost busy long enough for him to get there in time tonight. If anyone was a hero it was she, and she smelled like a fresh summer morning.

Slowly Sam let go of Danny, avoiding his eyes as she did. Shivering at the sudden disappearance of her warmth Danny pulled on his jumpsuit again. “We should get going.” He said glancing over at Sam.

“Yeah.” Sam said repacking her first aid kit before putting it in her bag once more. “Give me a lift home so I don’t have to explain to the people I call parents were I’ve been the last three hours?”

“Won’t they wonder how you got home. They know you went out right?” Danny asked zipping up his jumpsuit and reattaching the thermos to his belt.

Shrugging Sam closed her coat. “Grandma saw me leave, she won’t tell my parents if she don’t think they need to know.” She hitched her bag over one shoulder before putting her arm around Danny’s shoulders.

Placing an arm around her waist Danny lifted them both up through the house and out in to the cold night air. Passing the big clock on the town hall Danny sighed, he wasn’t going to be home any earlier tonight than he’d been the night before.

Leaving Sam in her room he flew the next half hour to Wishing Hill. Landing in his bedroom he was about to collapse on to his bed when he remembered the person sleeping in it. He’d made a deal with Dannielle and she’d played him while he was gone. Seeing as Mrs Oswald had a tendency to check up on him every other hour he couldn’t just leave. He could have made a copy of himself, but he hadn’t known if he would need all of his powers.

Dannielle had agreed to play his double for the night on the conditions that he show up to watch her hockey game that Saturday and that he let her play Doom on his computer. She’d apparently played the role well seeing as she was asleep in his bed.

Getting his hands under her shoulders and knees Danny lifted his cousin. She was wearing a pair of orange pajamas and her long hair fell over her face. To Danny’s surprise he found that she hardly weighed anything and was very thin. Wriggling in his arms she turned her face towards his chest and kept on sleeping.

Gently Danny carried Dannielle up through the celling to her room and laid her down on her bed. Wriggling out the blanket from under her he put it over Dannielle’s sleeping form and made sure that she was tucked in before leaving.

Brushing his teeth’s Danny turned back to his human form. Tip toeing back to his room he found that someone had left a handful of drawing pins just in front of the door, and had also wedged the door shut with a brome. Shaking his head at the childish prank Danny removed the broom and picked up the drawing pins putting them on his desk as he entered the dark room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you havn't figured it out yet, Im shiping Sam and Danny but seeing as they keep saying that they are not a couple untill the last ep which I am ignoring the relationship hasn't realy moved on.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday the last school day of the week and nothing is great about it.

Wishing he could have gotten a dreamless night’s sleep Danny was happy when the alarm clock did a valiant try to wake him up. He smashed his hand down on it and rolled over searching for his phone under his pillow. Finally finding the phone, it started to ring.

Looking at the caller id he denied the call before looking through his, Sam’s and Tucker’s chat. It wasn’t long before his phone rang again. Once more he denied the call and sat up massaging his stiff neck. The phone rang a third time and growling Danny picked up.

“What do you want?” he asked Vlad Master.

“Grumpy are we?” Vlad said in a too cheerful tone too be allowed that early in the morning. “Have you taken your vitamins yet?”

“Do you know what time it is?” Danny asked swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“I know. Do you want me to shove them down your throat again?” Vlad asked making Danny shiver.

Getting up Danny dug around in his bag for the medicine box. “I’ll take them now.” He sighed walking out of his room and in to the kitchen where he got a glass of water. Swallowing the pills he washed them down with the water. “Done, are you satisfied?” He growled in to the phone.

“For now.” Vlad said before hanging up on Danny.

Putting down the glass Danny turned to walk back to his room meeting Mrs Oswald in the door. “Morning Danny, you up early.” She said giving Danny a smile. “Help me put out breakfast will you?”

“Just let me put on some clothes.” Danny said making sure to hid the medicine box behind his back. Slipping out of the kitchen Danny got back to his room and put on his gym clothes, gym being the first class of the day. He shoved his schoolbooks down his bag and walked out to the kitchen where he helped Mrs Oswald put out breakfast.

Cody kept glaring at Danny throughout breakfast, it should have been unnerving but Danny was used to Dash. Compared to him Cody was just an angry kitten. Eating his cornflakes and drinking his coffee Danny tried to wake up properly without any luck.

Like the day before Mrs Oswald gave Danny a ride to school. Snoozing on the way Danny woke up when Mrs Oswald stopped outside of Casper High. He looked around sleepily and was about to leave the car when Mrs Oswald stopped him.

Placing a gentle hand on his shoulder she looked him in the eye. “I’m going to pick you up after school, you have at time at the psychiatrist at 4pm.” She said.

Danny cringed. “Do I have to go, I get enough shrink talk from my sister.” He said wondering why he needed to speak to a psychiatrist, last time it had almost ended in his sister being killed.

“You have to.” Mrs Oswald said in a gentle voice as if she was talking to someone damaged. “It’s part of the proses, I can come with you if you want to.”

Biting his lip Danny shook his head. “When are you picking me up? I’ve got a free period at the end of today.”

“Around 3pm right here.” She said and when Danny nodded she let go of his shoulder. “Have a good day at school.” She said watching Danny get out of the car and meet up with his two friends.

 

Mrs Tetslaff was as always uninspiring when it came to indoors lessons. If it weren’t for the cold and light rain that had started just as the school bell rang, she’d forced them to run around the forest on orientation. Instead they were all put in to two teams and told that they were playing dodge ball. And like always Danny was in the opposite team of Dash.

As soon as Mrs Tetslaff blew her whistle they either ran towards the balls and tried to take some one out, or they did like Sam, Tucker and Danny, they dodged. Unlike normal matches however Dash team didn’t gang up on Danny or any of the other geeks, instead they focused on the bigger threats, like Sam for instance.

If Danny was a wis at dodge ball Sam was the goddess. He could avoid getting hit with ease and had to throw the balls carefully or else injure someone. Sam danced over the floor sending hard balls back at Dash and his team. It wasn’t before the whole team ganged up on her that she was finally hit and only after they lost half the players to Danny.

Turning their attention at Danny he grinned. His leg wasn’t hurting even after running around for a good 15 min. Feeling as thou he could go on for hours Danny dodged the oncoming balls swatting some of them out of the air and sending them back at the other team.

Finally feeling like his old self again he didn’t think when he put all his weight on his right leg and twisted to dodge a couple of hard balls sent by Dash and his ever present companion Kwan. Pain shot through Danny’s leg and he faltered. Flinging his hands out in front of him he tried to catch himself as he fell.

Seeing the oncoming ball he could do nothing without showing his ghost powers. Stars exploded in front of his eyes and he hit the floor hard, pressing a hand against his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry.  
> Hey I even have some art for this. ^^


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being forced to sit in a room with a shrink is not Danny's idea of a good friday, but being forced to be in the same room dosn't mean he have to speak.

“Good God, Danny! What happened to you?” Mrs Oswald exclaimed seeing Danny’s right eye as he got in to the car.

“Dodgeball.” Danny said putting on his seatbelt. He’d gotten a black eye the same color as a galaxy painting, heavy on the purple and green. Mrs Tetslaff had called a halt to the game when Danny hit the floor and after seeing the damage she’d sent him to the nurses office. He hadn’t gone to the nurses office, instead Danny had showered, put on a t-shirt and jeans and created a snowball in the palm of his hand that he pressed against his right eye while he waited in the school library for the next class.

“Dodgeball?” Mrs Oswald asked disbelief in her voice. Nodding Danny turned to look out the window. “How do you get a black eye from soft rubber balls?”

Shrugging Danny didn’t mention that it had been normal handball balls they’d been using and not some soft rubber balls. “Pain’s an excellent motivator.” Was Mrs Tetslaff’s excuse whenever anyone complained. Danny watched as they passed Sam and Tucker on their way to visit Valeri, waving at him he waved back.

45 minutes later Mrs Oswald parked the car in front of the Wishing Hills social workers office building. She escorted Danny in to the office building and after stopping at an receptionists desk they waited till a woman dressed in a red suit, high red heals and with curly red hair that flowed over her left shoulder told Danny to come with her.

“Penelope Art,” The redhead said, showing Danny in to a small office, with a desk, coffee brewer, a couch and two easy chairs placed around a low coffee table. “Pleas have a seat, you want some tea or coffee?” She asked pointing for Danny to sit down on the couch.

“Coffee.” Danny said shivering in the cold room. “Is there a reason why it’s so cold in here?” He asked walking over to sit on the couch.

“I’m sorry, it’s this old building. I’ve asked the janitor to fix it but he got his hands full at the moment. I hope it’s not bothering you?” Dr Art said making two cups of coffee.

Sitting cross-legged on the couch Danny picked up his homework and only looked up from it when Dr Art handed him the coffee. She tried to have a conversation with him but to her annoyance found that the conversation was only one sided. Danny had already decided that morning that he wasn’t going to speak to some psychiatrist he didn’t know and didn’t trust. Doing his homework seemed like the best option seeing as he couldn’t get to the library.

After an hour passed without a word from Danny Dr Art sighed and called an end to the session. Danny was quick to pack his bag, shaking the redheads hand he walked out the door, shivering from the cold.

Mrs Oswald was still sitting in the waiting room when Danny walked out of Dr Art’s office rubbing his hands together to get them warm again. “How did it go?” She asked smiling and nodding to the shrink.

“Well, I guess.” Danny said and they walked towards the stairs. “I’m heading to the library, if that’s alright, there’s some schoolwork I need to do.”

Walking out in the light rain Mrs Oswald sighed. “It’s fine, just be home by 7pm.” Checking his watch Danny sighed, he had two hours before he had to be back at Mrs Oswald’s house. “Set an alarm this time so you don’t forget.” She said walking towards her car.

“I will.” Danny answered with no intention of setting an alarm. He walked along the street heading towards the library until Mrs Oswald had passed him in her car. Ducking in to an alley he changed and flew to the library instead.

 

“Come on, it would be really great if you could just let me peak at it.” Dash said now sitting opposite Danny. Not comfortable with the closeness of his bully and now study buddy? Danny had pulled his things as close to himself as he could.

“No Dash, that would be cheating.” He growled back holding on to his notebook.

“If this is about the black eye I’m sorry, okay, it was dodgeball after all.” Dash tried to get a grip on Danny’s notebook and pull it out of his hands.

What Dash hadn’t anticipated was that Danny’s grip was a lot stronger than his. “You can write your own book review without looking at my notes.” Danny growled yanking his notebook out of Dash’s hands. “And it has nothing to do with the black eye, I’ve had worse from you.”

Putting away his things in his bag Danny tried to leave but Dash got up and blocked Danny’s way. “Really, I thought you were better than this, your sister always let me read her old book reviews.” Dash said trying to grab Danny’s bag.

“My sister bragged about her A+ whenever she let you read them. She used them as examples of how a book review should look.” Danny said trying to sidestep Dash. “You’ve read the book it isn’t that hard to summarize the story and give an opinion.”

Blocking Danny again Dash lifted his chin. “Easy for you to say, I don’t have time, I have football practice every other afternoon and I have to make up for time I missed when you broke my ribs.”

A stab of guilt made Danny twitch. “You should have done the review when you had time then.” He said but some of the annoyance had left him. And then something hit him. “Unless. You want to read my text because you haven’t read the book yet.” A nerve twitched at the corner of Dash’s eye. “That’s it, you haven’t read the book and is trying to bully me into giving you my review.”

Dash lunged out with a hand gripping the front of Danny’s t-shirt. “If I was bullying you I would beat you up right here and take that stupid notebook from you.” Dash snarled his face to close to Danny’s.

“And here I thought you were actually trying to change. What made you stop beating on me in school. Was it because you almost killed me, or did my sisters words hit a nerve.” Danny asked trying not to smell the garlic on Dash’s breath.

Dash snarled showing his white teethes. “Why would I want to change, I’m the most popular guy in school. What your sister said meant nothing. You hear that Freak nothing.” Dash let go of Danny and shoved him back.

Gripping the back of a chair to keep himself from falling over Danny glared at Dash wondering how much more football practice he could make him miss. Straightening Danny felt his knees bend as he readied to strike back.

But strike back at what? Dash wasn’t moving to shove Danny again, he wasn’t trying to hit him. He had actually apologized for the black eye. A taste of smoked BBQ made Danny close his eyes and count back from a hundred breathing slowly. There was no reason to get angry, no reason to start a fight or scare the crap out of Dash. Sure it would be fun to scare Dash shitless again, he might even get some much needed energy from it. And it would all be wrong.

“What’s wrong Freak-ton? You scared I’ll hit you or something?” Dash asked pushing Danny lightly. “If you let me read your review I promise I won’t hit you.”

Shaking his head Danny looked up at Dash. “Why don’t you read the book first? Then I’ll let you read what I wrote.” Danny could feel his hands shaking and quickly hid them in his pockets. That was stupid now it would take him precious time to get them up if Dash decided to start punching him.

“We have what two days before the review is due in on Monday. I can’t finish that book in time to wright a fucking review.” Dash crossed his arms in front of him clearly having made up his mind.

“Eleven hours and 10 minutes.” Danny said picking up his phone from his pocket. “If you skip past the end it might be more like ten hours.”

Looking up at Dash Danny smiled. The big bully had a priceless expression of confusion on his face that was quickly hidden behind a mask of anger. “You might read that fast but I don’t have time to sit for eleven hours.”

“Neither have I.” Danny shrugged. “And it won’t be you reading.” Dash looked at Danny as if he was talking in some other language. Sighing Danny showed Dash the app on his phone. “It’s called an audiobook. You download it and then pretend you’re listening to music. A lot of people use it.” He explained feeling like he was talking to a six year old and not a sixteen year old high school student.

Dash made a face. “That’s for stupid people who can’t read.” He said looking away from Danny’s phone as if he was going to get stupid by looking at it.

“It’s for people who have trouble reading, are slow readers, dyslexic or actually blind. You can be a nuclear scientist and still enjoy listening to a book. The point is that you don’t have to sit still and read. You can walk your dog, or work out at the gym and at the same time read a book.” Danny sighed putting down his phone. “I’ll give you the book, you can just play it on your phone or Ipod if you want. But I won’t give you my text.” He didn’t say that the text was only four sentences and he still had two hours of the book left.

It showed when Dash was thinking over a hard problem, he always chewed on his lower lip and avoided looking at anyone. In the end he agreed to try Danny’s audio book and they went in search of a computer to copy the files over from Danny’s phone to Dash’s Ipod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to listen to books rather than read them, I can't sit still for long enught to go through a boring book and rarly have time to onely read and I like to think that both Danny and Dash have sort of the same problem.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friday evening could have gone better, sure watching a movie and eating pizza dosn't sound all that bad but there's more to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will apoligize in advance to anyone who takes ofence at what Im wrighting it is not my intention to step on anyone.

Friday nights was apparently. Pizza and movie night in the Oswald house. Cody who’d been home just before dinner every other night was home early and it was apparently his turn to pick a movie. Danny yawned when he picked The lord of the ring, earning him a cold glare from the younger teen. 

“What you don’t like it?” Cody asked getting a slice of pizza.

“Saw it last week end. I saw all of the movies then with my friends.” Danny answered getting a second slice of pizza. 

A moment later he regretted speaking up. Trying to be fair and understanding, Mrs Oswald insisted that they watch another movie, Cody understandably got angry and started to shout and complain earning himself an ear boxing from his mom before being sent to his room.

Turning to Danny she sighed. “Do you have a movie you want to watch?” She asked trying to sound calm but clearly still angry. Shaking his head Danny looked at his cousin who shrugged.

“Why don’t you pick a movie Mrs O, I’m up for anything.” She said between large bites of pizza.

They ended up watching The Holiday. Danny wasn’t that interested in the movie and fell asleep halfway through it. His nightmares returned as soon as he was asleep. Pink light flashing past him and people screaming out in pain. He was never fast enough to save anyone, he couldn’t even raise his voice loud enough to warn them.

A woman lay dead in an alley covered in blood, her guts spilling out over Danny’s white boots. Straightening he turned around and seethed the gleaming cane sword whipping his bloodstained hands on the side of his pants. Someone shouted at him. Turning around he stared at the mirror image of himself, black hair flowing in the wind, eyes a piercing blue and blood running down his jaw.

The mirror image bent down over the dead woman, tears running down his chin. Glaring up he shouted at himself to look at his work, to look at who he’d killed. Danny did, the woman was young, thin, dressed in black and purple. His eyes moved over the woman’s face, round cheeks black lipstick, purple eyeshadow and black hair cut at the chin, Sam.

Jerking awake Danny looked around the living room. He was still on the couch, Dannielle leaning against him, a blanket covering them both. The movie was over and Mrs Oswald was taking out the dishes. “Did I wake you?” she asked seeing Danny look around the room nervously.

Scratching at his eyes Danny shook his head. “No, You need any help?” he asked pushing of the blanket at the same time making sure not to wake Dannielle.

“I’ve got this.” She said piling up all the plates and glasses on one arm. “Can you get Dannielle up to her room for me?” She asked.

Nodding Danny turned to his cousin and to Mrs Oswald’s surprise, lifted her up in to his arms without the girl waking. Shifting his grip on Dannielle Danny carried her up the stairs to her bedroom and laid her down on top of the bed covers. Covering her up with the blanket Danny was about to leave when something outside of her window caught his attention.

Walking around the bed Danny looked out the window narrowing his eyes to see anything. After a minute of intense staring he decided that it had just been his imagination and left the room carefully closing the door behind him.

Saying good night to Mrs Oswald Danny made up his bed making it look like he was sleeping in it before transforming and phasing out through the outer wall. Looking back at the house he could see light coming from Cody’s room as well as the glow coming from the kitchen.

Getting his phone out Danny started the speak chat and was immediately bombarded with Tucker shouting. “NO no no, Get up you need to jump, hold space. Fuck fuck shit!”

“Am I disturbing something:” Danny asked hearing someone else shouting in the background.

“Wait hold on a second.” There was the sound of a mic moving and then Tuckers voice coming much clearer through Danny’s headphones. “Yo man, You up for some epic adventuring?”

“Naa, afraid not. Patrols.” He yawned. “Are you and Sam playing?”

There was a pause that lasted a bit too long. “I’m teaching Valeri Doom actually.” He said. “Do you need me to help you patrol?”

“It’s fine I can check if Sam got time.” He answered wondering when Valeri and Tucker had gotten so close that he freely gave up his gaming time to teach her.

“Great, see you around then.” Tucker said a bit too eager to end the conversation.

“Sure thing.” Danny said switching chatroom so that he and Sam would be the only one speaking.

Waiting for Sam to see that he was online Danny watched the light up skyline of Wishing Hill. His eyes landed on a tall building and a figure standing atop it. Or more accurately the shadow flowing away from a person standing on the edge of the building. Shivering Danny debated flying after the shadow when the person on the building suddenly jumped.

He didn’t think he only reacted. Unlike the time he’d caught Valeri he caught the guy much easier. Getting an arm around him, he slowed their decent slowly enough that the person wouldn’t get hurt but fast enough that they didn’t hit the ground.

Carrying the jumper back up to the top of the building Danny let go of him a foot of the roof, fuming with anger. But he wasn’t the only one angry, the teenager who’d just jumped got up on his feet furious. “The hell did you catch me for!” he shouted at Danny.

Crossing his arms Danny glared down at the teenager, he was lean, wore an old winter jacket over an old t-shirt and jeans. Danny could see old scars on his hands as well as on the side of his head almost hidden under his short hair. “Why the hell did you jump?” Danny asked back barely containing his own anger.

“To end it, why do you think I jumped. Who asked you to save me?” He growled back making Danny taste the teens anger as well as his despair.

“Cus if you wanted to kill yourself, you should have taken a taller building and made sure to go head first.” Danny answered in a cold tone.

“What do you know of it, you’re just a ghost you can fly.” He pointed to Danny’s tail, he hadn’t thought about it when he turned his legs in to a tail speeding after the falling teenager.

Changing his tail back in to legs Danny landed on the roof in front of the teenager. “Yeah I can fly, but that doesn’t change my argument. Why do you want to kill yourself?”

“Everyone is better off without me!” He cried out tears welling up in his eyes. “There is nothing left for me, I’m better of gone.”

Biting his lip Danny forced himself to stay calm and think like his sister. “Gone and Dead are two different things.” He said trying to remember what Jazz had told him. The teenager glared at Danny his hands balled up in to fists. “Take it from someone who knows, Life is a lot better than death.”

“And you know that because you are a ghost! What do you know about life, what do you know about ME!” He swung his fist at Danny who went intangible letting the punch go through him.

“I know nothing about you. But I know that people will never be better off because someone committed suicide.” He looked at the light up buildings around them. “Tell me why you want to die and I promise the next time you jump I won’t catch you.” He glanced at the teenager who was shivering in the cold. “Let me help.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alarm is not what wakes Danny in the morning but the voice of his father.

It wasn’t the alarm clock that woke Danny up on Saturday morning but the sound of his dad’s voice. “They had the nerve to call us bad parents, you hear that Bad parents!”

“Yes the nerve of them, have you heard anything of who reported it?” Vlad asked. Danny opened his blood shut eyes to glare at the man floating beside Danny’s desk going through his homework.

“No the people at this social service won’t tell us a thing, We aren’t even allowed to know where our son is!” Sitting up Danny looked at the phone lying on the desk. Putting a finger to his lips Vlad looked intently at Danny.

Understanding Vlad’s gesture Danny rolled his eyes and got his feet’s under him. “I’m certain that he is alright where ever they’ve placed him. Tell me Jack how’s Maddie doing, she must be taking this hard.” Danny barred his teethes in a snarl.

“Hard! V-man she is on the phone half the day talking to important people in suits, trying to get to the bottom of this. I mean how could they ever think we would hurt our child.” The corner of Danny’s mouth twitched. He was happy that his mom was giving the social service people an earful but afraid at the same time, she might make things worse.

Opening his mouth to speak Danny was cut off by Vlad. “Sorry I can’t do anything for you Jack, I have to hang up. Tell Maddie to call me if she needs any help.” Vlad hang up the call before Danny or his dad could say anything.

“What do you want?” Danny growled at Vlad the circle of light appearing around him.

“First of,” Vlad said pocketing his phone. “You should know what all of this is doing to your parents. And second, you have horrible grammar, is this really your English homework or something you wrote in your sleep.”

Charging a ghost ray Danny glared at Vlad. “Just you wait until they find out that you were the one who did this.”

“Well, that will be hard, seeing as I called in under a false identity.” He put down Danny’s homework. “And I wouldn’t advice throwing that ghost ray at me. You’ll only end up with a scorch mark on the wall that will be hard to explain.

Growling Danny forced the charged up blast to dissipate. “Is there a reason to why you are still here?” He asked drawing upon his frost powers instead, forcing the temperature in the room to drop.

Vlad picked up the box of pills from Danny’s bag and tossed them to him. “Eat your medicine.” He said in a calm voice as if the sudden cold didn’t bother him.

Weighing the box in his hand Danny glanced at Vlad. “Why are you so invested in me taking these pills?” he asked making no move to open the box.

Sighing Vlad shook his head. “Do you want me to shove them down your throat again?” He asked shifting to stand on the floor.

“No, I will take them if you answer me why I should and what’s in them.” He opened the lid with Saturday written on it.

Shaking his head Vlad crossed his arms. “They are vitamins, they will restore your immune system after the fever broke it down.”

“They make me sleepy the whole school day.” Danny said taking the pills out of the box. “What sort of vitamins are they?”

“You are sleepy in school because you don’t sleep enough during the night. Stop patrolling Amity Park and let your body rest.” Vlad said sounding more like the concerned uncle he liked to play than the evil creep he was.

“I know that.” Danny shrugged dropping the temperature in the room even lower, finally seeing Vlad shiver. “What’s in them?” he asked gathering his powers to freeze the fruit-loop were he stood.

Sighing mist formed around Vlad. “Ascobic acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Magnesium and iron supplements. They are not dangerous, now eat them.” His eyes glowed red.

Against his better judgement he once more swallowed the pills. “Will you leave now?” Danny asked a ball of ice forming in his hand.

Smiling the black rings appeared around Vlad and he started to change form. A knock on the door made both half-ghosts freeze. “Danny you awake, Mrs O’s made pancakes. You want syrup or jam on yours?” Danny’s heart skipped a beat when he heard Dannielle’s voice.

Glancing at Vlad he saw the black rings completely change him. Looking at Danny Vlad raised an eyebrow. “Dannielle?” he said in a low voice an odd expression on his face.

“You get anywhere near her and I’ll lock you in a thermos and throw it out in to space.” Danny hissed back returning to his human form. “Now get lost.” He said, everything but his glowing green eyes had changed back.

A muscle twitched at the corner of Vlad’s eye. “Danny! Wake up, don’t make me come in there and pull you out of bed.” Dannielle called banging hard on the door. Vlad’s eyes moved from the door to Danny a calculating look in his eyes. “Alright, ready or not I’m coming in, Please don’t be naked.” Dannielle shouted through the door turning the handle.

The door opened letting out the cold air. Danny could only imagen the image his cousin saw when she walked in. Dressed in only a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, Danny was crouched on the bed ready to throw a blast of ice at Vlad. Vlad Plasmius floated inches over the floor staring at the door still that odd look on his face.

Dannielle’s eyes went from Danny to Vlad and then started glowing green as the signature white rings appeared around her. “Dad.” She growled going ghost.

To both Danny’s and Dannielle’s surprise Vlad’s face changed and both recognized the sad expression on his face before the smug smile hid it. “I’ll see you around.” He said before pulling his cape around himself and disappearing in a swirling motion.

Crushing the ball of ice in his hand Danny sat down on his bed, a light headache growing behind his temple. Dannielle however was not as fast to disarm herself and only after she’d looked around the room for a good minute did she lower her charged hands and dismiss the power she’d gathered. Her glowing eyes turned to Danny who was pulling on his jeans from the day before. “What was he doing here?” she asked.

“Annoying me.” He said tying his shoes.

Relaxing Dannielle changed back. “Is he still trying to make you come over to his side or is he trying to clone you again?” She asked her black and white suit turning in to a pair of shorts, leggings, a red shirt and blue hoody.

“The whole reason I’m here is because he is trying to make me come over to his side.” Danny said putting on his other shoe. “That and he saved my life.”

“He saved your life and sent you in to the system?” She exclaimed sitting down on Danny’s desk her hair flowing freely around her neck.

“Yeah long story, tell you some other time. I’d like to taste those pancakes you spoke of.” Finished tying his shoes Danny put on his favorite hoody and together with Dannielle, walked in to the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright I planed for Vlad to show up every morning in difirent ways, som are kind and some like this one is just to rub salt in Danny's wounds.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slow start turns in to horrible ending.

A normal Saturday at home, Danny would have slept in, eaten a late breakfast if any and then gone out to hang with Sam and Tucker. At the Oswald house there was no sleeping in, breakfast was served around 8am and consisted of pancakes, toast and the normal cornflakes. After breakfast there were chores to take care of, mainly cleaning their bedrooms and helping Mrs Oswald clean the rest of the house as well as the garden. Cody and Danny both got stuck gathering leafs in to piles while Dannielle vacuumed the living room.

After the chores were done they were free to do what they wanted. Cody was the first one out the door mumbling something about friends to his mom before leaving. Danny had promised Dannielle to come to her hockey game that afternoon and they both walked down to the ice rink after lunch.

They were early and Dannielle was fast to change into her skates but didn’t put on any of her protection as she glided out on to the ice. “You know they call me the ice queen in school.” She said gliding over the ice, there was not many people around.

“I can’t imagen why.” Danny said watching as she glided along the ice on one skate. They were the same after all and his element was the ice and cold so why wouldn’t it be her element as well. She jumped making a pirouette before sticking the landing and gliding on.

Watching Dannielle skate around the ice Danny thought of his parents and how he would fix his situation. He had come up with some ideas but none of them would be very good in the long run. The first idea had been to simply leave Mrs Oswald’s home and go back to his parents but that wouldn’t solve anything. He could be obstinate but that was almost as bad as the first idea. Tucker had tried to be helpful and told Danny to run away and live on his own but Sam had squashed that idea and suggested that he could go to live with Jazz instead.

Of all the ideas they’d thrown at each other moving to Jazz was the least extreme but it would mean that Danny missed school and instead of taking him 30 min to fly to Amity Park, it would take him about 4 maybe 3 hours to get to his town and by that time it might even be too late to save it from ghosts like Vlad.

Knowing his sister he was sure that she and their mother would be more than capable to get him back, but it didn’t stop him from worrying. Deep in thought Danny absently watched his cousin skate around the ice looking more like a figure skater than a hockey player.

Eventually Dannielle’s teammates joined her on the ice and she shortly returned to Danny’s side putting on her hockey gear. The other team was gathering on the opposite side of the ring looking like they were ready to crush anyone getting in their way.

“Good luck.” Danny said as his cousin stepped on to the ice once more, wearing the blue and green colors of her high school.

“Thanks but I don’t need it.” She smiled. “We are going to crush those wimps, just you watch okay.” She said turning to join her team gliding along the ice as naturally as she walked.

The match started and it didn’t take long before Dannielle’s team had made their first goal. Watching his cousin play Danny was jealous, she was part of a team that listened to each other and supported each other. He had seen Casper highs football team play and they had only one strategy, to go in head first. Dannielle’s team was great at offence and a defense relaying heavily on Dannielle and the goalkeeper.

As Dannielle’s team made their second goal Danny’s phone rang. Looking at the screen Danny answered. “What’s up Tuck?”

“Box ghost.” Tucker said followed by the sound of something fragile breaking. “He found a storage unit auction and is getting people acquainted with the content they were buying.” Tucker continued in a bored tone while people screamed in the background, followed by a second crash.

“Can’t you guys handle him, I’m sort of busy.” Danny said and at the same time he tried to get eye contact with his cousin.

There was another crashing noise after with Sam spoke. “We have tried to take him on, but it’s a bit hard to get a clear line of sight on him when boxes of old photo albums and training gear is flying at you.” Danny heard the sound of her wrist ray firing.

“How long can you hold him of?” Danny asked finally getting Dannielle’s attention. He pointed at the phone pressed against the side of his face and then at the door. She nodded and her hands moved in front of her as if saying something in sign.

“Sooner rather than later would be preferable…” Sam said before something loudly crashed in the background.

“That was a perfectly good plasma tv!” Tucker’s shout was shortly followed by another crash. “Not the Xbox!”

“As you can hear.” Sam continued, “Tucker might get a heart attack if boxy keeps throwing things around. You need me to text you the address?”

“Please do.” Danny sighed getting in to an obscured spot behind the ice rink and a dumpster. His phone buzzed and looking at it he saw a text from Sam. “Thanks, Keep Boxy busy for me”

“What do you think we are doing.” Sam shouted over the sound of musical instrument hitting something hard. Sam hung up and Danny changed in to his ghost form flying of in the direction of Amity Park and the haunted storage units.

Following his Gps Danny heard the commotion at the storage units before he saw it. The box ghost was having a field day. Boxes were floating around him as shields protecting him from blast of green energy coming from the ground. Laughing he sent boxes in the direction of the blast and lifted another up as he did.

“You cannot defeat me with silly weapons, For I am the Box ghost and I will crush you with…” Like always he halted in the middle of his speech to read the label on the box. However there was no one on the box he’d picked. “No Label!” He exclaimed. “Don’t people know that they will never find anything if they don’t label their boxes!” He sent the box flying and it crushed loudly in to something.

“You don’t think it’s because people don’t want to find stuff?” Danny asked flinging a hand full of his ghost ray at the box ghost.

Yelping and dropping some of the boxes floating around him the box ghost turned to face his enemy. “You!” he exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find stuff when you don’t label the boxes.” The box ghost shouted sending a small box at Danny.

Avoiding the box Danny shrugged. “Sure I do, have you seen my parents garage dad never label anything.” He sent a second ball of ghostly energy at the box ghost drawing the ghosts attention away from the people he was terrorizing.

“Then you should know that there is always a surprise seeing what you find in the boxes.” The box ghost shouted and the hair on Danny’s neck stood on end.

Instinctively he turned intangible feeling a light pressure at the small of his back before the box went through him and flew strait for the box ghost. The box ghost caught the box and threw it at the ground aiming for the people down there.

Diving at top speed Danny caught the box with a blast from his ghost ray but now he was floating between the box ghost and the people he was trying to protect. “That all you’ve got?” he asked seeing Sam and Tucker hiding inside an open storage unit.

“No!” the box ghost said making it sound as if Danny was stupid. “I have the … training gear of Fresh sweat gym.” He shouted making boxes with the gym logo fly at Danny.

Danny blasted the boxes with his ghost ray making all the weight and training gear fall to the ground before reaching him. Well almost all, one of the weight still had enough momentum to clip Danny’s shoulder sending a sharp shock of pain through it. “You’ve got to do better than that, maybe you should get a gym card. At least then you might actually hit something.” He taunted not letting it show that his shoulder was giving him discomfort.

“I’ll show you who needs to go to the gym!” The box ghost shouted raising his arms in to the air, and with them all the boxes from the Fresh sweat gym.

“Oh crap.” Danny said glancing at the people hiding in the unit behind him. The box ghost laughed and sent the boxes flying at Danny and the humans.

Like so often Danny reacted instinctively. Power had already gathered around his hands and throwing them forwards he clapped his hands together creating a wave that hit most of the boxes. The once that didn’t break fell short or completely missed their target.

“You’re powers will not stop me from bringing fear to this storage facility with the power of corrugated cardboard. I am the ruler here!” the box ghost shouted making Danny wonder, not for the first time how much energy the Box ghost had.

Wishing he hadn’t moved his shoulder Danny tried to float to the side of the box ghost gathering power in his right hand. “You a ruler. Come on Boxy don’t make me laugh.” The box ghost sent more boxes flying at Danny but without the people behind him he could easily dodge the boxes.

“Stand still and have a taste of Mr Jackson’s Indian spice collection!” The box ghost screamed sending a small box at Danny who lazily avoided it catching a glimpse of something gleaming underneath the box ghost.

“I can do this all day.” Danny said with a yawn avoiding even more of the boxes. “But you can’t:” He smiled sending a blast of power at the ghost.

The box ghost avoided the obvious blast and laughed. “Ha ha! Your powers will not touch me in my domain!” He shouted.

“No but maybe the power of a cylindrical container can touch you.” Danny said smiling as vortex from the Fenton thermos caught the box ghost and pulled him in to it. “Yeah it did.” He said to himself floating down to Sam and Tucker who capped the thermos. “Good work guys.” He said landing in front of them.

“Naa it was nothing.” Tucker said throwing the thermos up in the air and catching it again. “Should we send him back in to the ghost zone or let him cool down for a bit?”

“You realized he is in a thermos, it’s meant to keep things warm.” Sam said taking the thermos from Tucker. “Keep throwing it like that and you might accidentally release him.” She put the thermos in her bag.

“We should leave before people starts asking questions.” Danny said seeing how some of the people were coming out of their hiding spots. There were no arguing from Sam or Tucker, both sneaked away from the storage facility on their scooters, Danny following in the air.


	19. Chapter 19

Sam poked at Danny’s left shoulder making him hiss. He had gotten a nasty bruise and the arm didn’t respond as Danny wanted it to. “Yeah think it’s dislocated again.” She sighed. “I think I can put it back but it will hurt.”

Danny was sitting on Sam’s computer chair in her bed room the top of his suit pulled down, Tucker was sitting on the bed his phone in hand. “Make it quick, I can’t go back to the foster home with the shoulder like this.” He said through gritted teethes.

Swallowing Sam nodded. “Relax and don’t fight me.” She said and with the calm ease of much practice she moved Danny’s arm in to the right position and with a hard painful push that made him cry, the shoulder popped back in place. “Shssss, keep it down or mom and dad will find out you are here.

“Didn’t you say they soundproofed your room because of all the loud metal music you were playing?” Danny asked putting his right hand on the shoulder a layer of frost gathering under the palm of his hand.

Shrugging Sam leaned back on to her desk closing the anatomy book she’d been consulting. “Sure but I’d rather not risk it, just imagen what they would say.” She shivered.

Leaning back Danny nodded. “Sorry, I’ll try not to scream when my shoulder is being moved in ways it shouldn’t be.” He glanced over at Tucker. “Is there any more ghosts around town?”

Picking up the Fenton finder from where he’d put it Tucker scanned the screen. “Well there is you of course.” He turned left and right. “But other than that we are ghost free for the moment.”

“Good.” Danny sighed rubbing at his tired eyes. “I’ll just go back home and send Boxy back into the ghost zone then.” He said but made no effort to move out of the chair.

“Don’t you think it suspicious that the box ghost is already out of the ghost zone after less than a day?” Sam asked crossing her arms in front of her looking at the two boys as if she was the only intelligent person in the room.

Both Tucker and Danny shrugged. “You know my dad he probably tried to do something to improve the portal or get him faster internet or free cellphone service. He lets more ghosts in to our world than he keeps out.”

Nodding Sam lowered her arms. “You have a point, I’m just concerned that some other harder ghost is using Boxy to keep you distracted. He normally stays in the ghost zone for a week before attacking again with some box that’s not so scary.”

“Yeah like that box of sandwiches, I could really use one of them right now.” Tucker said looking at his phone once more.

Looking at the thermos containing the box ghost Danny sighed, Sam was right, Boxy was often used by other ghosts as a distraction most often by ghosts like Skulker. “What do you want me to do Sam, I’m spread thin as it is without splitting myself?”

Avoiding Danny’s eyes Sam fingered a lose thread on her shirt. “I know you are, but us calling you and having to keep the ghost busy for 20min isn’t working if the ghost is stronger than the once we’ve fought already this week.”

“And Boxy was the weakest of them and we couldn’t even handle him today without you.” Tucker added looking up from his phone. “Maybe you should split, keep a copy of yourself here to protect the town while you live a ‘normal’ life at that foster home?” Tucker suggested getting a hard look from Sam.

Scratching his head Danny sighed. “I’d rather not, but if you think that’s best I’ll leave a double to look after Amity Park.”

“Don’t do that.” Sam said apparently having a staring contest with Tucker. “You’d only half your power and the drawbacks are not worth the risk.” She said speaking more to Tucker than Danny. “If there is a really strong ghost in town we need you at full strength.”

“But if there is a big ghost in town we need him here, neither we nor Valeri can keep the really scary ghosts occupied for long.” Tucker argued.

“Valeri can’t do anything at the moment.” Danny added getting all eyes on him. “I got her ghost gear. I was planning to fix them when I had some spare time, but all the school work, ghost hunting and acting normal crap is getting in the way.” He looked over at Tucker who was staring at him mouth hanging open. “What?”

Shaking his head Tucker looked at Sam who had a similar expression on her face. “If you have her gear than I can use it to keep things under control here.” She said a twinkle in her eyes.

Digging in one of the pockets on his utility belt Danny pulled out Valeri’s four bands. “Give it a try.” He said.

Ten minutes later it was obvious that Sam using Valeri’s equipment wasn’t going to work. Tucker had watched Sam with a mixture of egger anticipation and curiosity, whereas Danny having already guessed the result just watched Sam’s facial expression as she tried to activate the suit. Putting on the bands was easy but getting them to activate turned out to be an impossibility and after many not so helpful suggestions from Tucker Sam gave up.

“How do they even work?” Sam asked handing the bands back to Danny.

“I think they are tied to Valeri’s emotions.” Danny said telling them about the time during the school trip that Valeri had gotten angry and they started glowing. “It’s just a theory but I think it’s sound.”

“How are you planning to fix her gear if you can’t even activate it?” Tucker asked his eyes intent on the bands that changed in to a whole suit with weapons for killing ghosts.

Shrugging Danny handed them to Tucker. “I was planning to ask you to see if you could hack in to them and get information on how to fix them that way. And if that didn’t work I’m thinking of making a deal with Tecnus.”

His two friends looked at him as if he just said that he was going to join Vlad in his attempts to rule the world. “What sort of deal?” Tucker asked holding the bands close to his smartphone.

Danny told them. “You think he’ll agree to it?” Sam asked disbelief evident in her voice.

“He wants to rule the world, if he agrees to the deal he’ll get to rule more than just the world.” Danny said his right hand on his shoulder again. “Besides we can rig it so he won’t do any damage.” Danny added looking at Tucker.

Giving up on trying to access the bands through his phone he tossed them back to Danny who caught them. “And by we you mean me.” He said getting in to one of his ‘What do I get out of it’ modes.

“I’m no tech geek. I only know that you can do it.” He glanced at Sam. “That is if you haven’t learned programing in the last year or so?”

Sam laughed. “When would I have time. With all the first aid I’ve given you I can get a medical license before I’m 18, but still have to pay a tech geek to fix my computer when it breaks down.” She said giving Danny a meaning full look.

“There you have it. You are a valuable tech geek and the only one who can do it.” Danny said placing Valeri’s bands back in a pocket on his belt. “Anyways, it’ll have to wait till I’ve fixed this social service thing. Besides she is to hurt right now to be out fighting ghosts.” He said getting up and pulling up his suit.

Once again Sam and Tucker exchanged meaning full looks. “That’s coming from the guy who fights ghosts less than an hour after being stabbed by a possessed sword.” Tucker muttered.

“And getting in to a fight with his nemesis while being sick.” Sam added giving Danny a meaningful look.

“Don’t blame me, people would be dead if I hadn’t.” He said getting the thermos with the box ghost in it from Sam’s desk.

“Oi you aren’t leaving are you? We still haven’t come up with a plan to keep the town safe.” Tucker said getting up from his seat on the bed.

Danny shrugged. “We can’t do any more than we already are. If a big nasty ghost attacks then just call me and make sure you two are safe. I’ll deal with the rest.” He said flying up to float close to the celling. “I’ll patrol around town every night and it’s only when I’m not at school that I’m not here.”

“Yeah whatever.” Tucker said crossing his arms over his chest.

“Don’t forget you promised to go to the poets evening with me tomorrow.” Sam said looking up at Danny.

“I haven’t forgotten. I promise I’ll be there.” He said before leaving the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright you might have noticed that this story is a lot about the relationships but there is a hiden villan here somewhere.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family hurt each other and still love each other

Danny missed the end of Dannielle’s game but seeing as she and her teammates were celebrating were as the opposing team were sulking he could guess the outcome. He had flown straight back to Wishing Hill after his talk with Sam and Tucker and was standing inside the doors to the ice hall watching his cousin.

Seeing him Dannielle waved at Danny to come over and he did. It took him closer to half an hour to leave the ice hall. Dannielle and her teammates insisted on giving him a play by play on how they won seeing as he had missed most of the game.

Finally leaving the cold building Danny was giving Dannielle a one armed piggyback ride, being the ice queen hadn’t stopped her from twisting her ankle in an attempt to avoid a tackle and make a goal at the same time.

“You sure you’re alright?” Danny asked but he knew better, she was a half ghost after all. Whenever he sprained an ankle or dislocated his shoulder, it healed within a day or two.

“I’ll be fine.” She said an arm around Danny’s uninjured shoulder. “Tell me about the ghost fight you had to go off to. Was it Skulker, or dad?” She asked excitedly.

“Sorry only the box ghost trying to work out at a storage unit auction.” Danny said and then told Dannielle the story of how he single handedly saved over fifty people taking a hit to his shoulder in order to protect them before generously letting Sam and Tucker capture the box ghost.

Dannielle laughed at the story and was still laughing when they walked in through the doors to Mrs Oswald’s home. “We’re home!” Danny called in to the house. The smell of that evenings dinner making his stomach growl.

“Good. Did the match go well?” Mrs Oswald asked sticking her head out in to the hall. She blinked at the two. “Or not?”

Giggling Dannielle let go of her bag that contain all her equipment as well as her hockey stick. “It was great! We won 7 to 1, if Angelica hadn’t missed the save it would have been 7 to zero.” She said and hugged Danny. He yelped when pain shot through his injured shoulder. “Ah sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Dannielle hurriedly apologized but the damage was already done.

Mrs Oswald’s eyes narrowed on Danny. “Is something wrong Daniel?” She asked using the formal pronunciation of his name.

“No just a bit sore from carrying a hyperactive child around for twenty minutes.” Danny smiled and hitched his cousin higher on his back before walking in to the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” He asked eager to change the conversation topic.

“Lasagna.” Mrs Oswald answered her eyes still on Danny as he put down Dannielle on a chair.

“Awesome!” Dannielle exclaimed putting her foot up on the chair beside her. 

Aware of Mrs Oswald’s eyes on him Danny made sure to move his arms as thou nothing was wrong. “I’ll take your bag up.” He told Dannielle.

“Thanks. Oh Mrs O are you making that salad as well?” She asked her stomach growling loudly.

Danny hurried out of the kitchen and carried Dannielle’s bag up to her room before going down to his own. Lying down on his bed he put a cold hand on his shoulder and using his frost power froze the fabric under his hand. The ache he’d been feeling subsided as he listened to Dannielle tell Mrs Oswald about the game.

Slowly relaxing Danny picked up his phone from his pocket and checked the chatroom. Tucker and Sam were once again texting. Tucker having finally given up on trying to find all the secrets of Doom by himself was asking Sam for tips. Joining the conversation Danny lost track of time until his stomach growled.

Looking at the time Danny raised an eyebrow. Leaving his phone in his room Danny walked out in to the kitchen. The table was set; Dannielle was still sitting on her chair, Mrs Oswald was standing beside the kitchen counter an eye on the clock and on the oven. Entering the kitchen Danny got a faint taste of ginger and it took him a moment to connect the taste to an emotion, Worry.

Walking over to his cousin Danny leaned on the back of her chair. “What’s wrong?” he asked in a hushed tone. “She’s almost 8pm why haven’t she called to dinner?”

Moving a hand in front of her Dannielle looked up at Danny before face palming. “Sorry I keep forgetting that you don’t know sign. She is worried cus Cody is late and she thinks he might be in trouble.” She answered her stomach growling loudly.

“I see.” Danny said his stomach echoing hers. “Why were you signing instead of talking?”

Scratching the back of her head Dannielle looked up at Danny. “You know my friend Amanda.” Danny nodded remembering the girl he’d seen at the library the first day. “As I said she is my best friend and when we don’t want anyone else to understand what we are saying we speak in sign. There is only a few people in school who knows it.” She said with a smile.

Nodding Danny glanced at the clock. “Yeah me, Tucker and Sam use Esperanto as our secret language, only other geeks understands us.”

Dannielle raised an eyebrow at him. “Why that language, why not something useful like French or Spanish?”

In a barely audible whisper Danny explained about Wulf and how he only spoke Esperanto and some rare words in English. “And seeing as only other geeks bothers to learn it we use Esperanto when we don’t want others to understand us.”

“What happen when you can’t speak or can’t hear, then you won’t understand each other?” Dannielle asked a smug smile on her lips.

Opening his mouth to answer they all heard the click from the front door opening followed by voices that was cut off when the door slammed shut. “I’m home!” Cody called in to the house and Mrs Oswald turned from her spot by the counter and walked out in to the hall giving her son an earful for being late.

Cody didn’t take the lecture that well and answered his mother back with words that Danny knew hurt. The two stayed in the kitchen listening to mother and son having a shouting match that didn’t end before Cody stomped up the stair and after yelling that he hated his mother, he slammed the door to his room making the whole house shake.

Neither Danny nor Dannielle moved from the kitchen, they could hear Mrs Oswald’s silent sobs in the hall. It wasn’t before she’d collected herself that she walked back in to the kitchen. Both Danny’s and Dannielle’s stomach chose that moment to growl making Mrs Oswald smile. “Let’s eat shall we.” She said taking the Lasagna out of the oven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was going to post this yesterday but my internet crashed so posting it today.   
> Enjoy^^


	21. Chapter 21

Patrolling Amity Park that night was uneventful; the only ghosts Danny came across were smart enough to run away when seeing him. Danny didn’t give chase to them knowing that they were mostly harmless. He stopped by his parent’s house to flush the box ghost back in to the ghost zone, getting a glimpse of his mom and dad sitting in the living room playing chess.

It wasn’t his alarm-clock, phone or Vlad that woke Danny the next day but the sound of Mrs Oswald lecturing Cody. Trying his best to ignore the raised voices Danny rolled over in bed pressing a pillow to his free ear to no avail. It was one of the few times that Danny cursed his supernatural hearing.

Getting out of bed he found his phone and tried to check the time finding that it had discharged in the night. Sighing he put the phone to charge and walked out of his room. Glancing at the door to the kitchen Danny decided that it was best to keep away. Feeling a shiver go up his spine Danny looked up to see his cousin sitting on the top step of the stairs.

Silently Danny walked up to sit beside her. “What’s happening?” he asked.

Yawning Dannielle stared down at the kitchen door. “Mrs and Mr O are having a talk with Cody.” She said in a tired tone. “They’ve been at it sense breakfast, didn’t you hear?”

Rubbing his tired eyes Danny shook his head. “I sleep like the dead when I can.” He said getting a smile from his cousin.

They sat quiet on the top most step, not trying to eavesdrop but finding it hard not to listen. “This is the price of happiness in this house.” Dannielle finally said her nails biting in to her arms.

Leaning against his cousin Danny pried her hands of her arms. “This is normal in any family.” Danny said reminded of all the times he’d gotten an earful for missing curfew or coming home with an F. “It’s when the parents starts to argue with each other that things are bad.”

Looking up at Danny Dannielle dried her watery eyes on her sleeves. She moved her mouth but nothing came out, in the end she leaned against Danny. “We should go before they realize we’re listening.” Danny said.

The two got up from the stair. “I’m taking the shower.” He said before letting go of his cousin who walked back to her room. Locking the bathroom door after himself Danny undressed getting a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. He was still thin but his skin wasn’t as bleak as it had been the first day he got to Mrs Oswald’s. The scars from the school trip could only be seen if one looked really closely, there weren’t even any scars left from the ghost fight that Friday nor were there any sign of the black eye.

Rolling his left shoulder Danny felt discomfort and could still see the bruise but knowing how fast his body healed he was certain that there wouldn’t be any trace left by Monday morning. Getting in to the shower he let the water wash over him feeling how tense muscles relaxed in the warmth.

Suddenly the water went from warm to boiling and Danny yelped flinching away. His back didn’t hit the tiled wall of the shower but something soft. Before he could even look around to see what it was two gloved hands gripped his jaw.

Feeling something small enter his mouth Danny tried to bite down but unlike the time at Vlad’s mansion the billionaire was in ghost form. He forced the five pills in to Danny’s mouth and then covered both his nose and mouth. Danny fought back landing an elbow in Vlad’s side and kicked his right knee. He tried to change in to Phantom but stopped when the reflex to swallow made the pills go down his throat.

Vlad let go of Danny the moment he felt him swallow, dumping him on the hard bathroom floor. Danny scrambled to his feet’s, turning to face the older ghost. “The hell did you do that for?” Danny growled.

Grinning Vlad poked Danny on the chest making him take a step back in to the hot stream of water. “I did it for you little badger.” He smiled showing his vampire teethes. “Don’t forget to wash behind the ears this time.” He said disappearing in a pink mist.

Still grumbling Danny returned ten minutes later to his room and got dressed. Mrs Oswald and Cody had stopped arguing by the time he finished showering. The angry teenager had left the house slamming the door after him. Mrs Oswald was sitting in the kitchen beside the potted plants she kept by the glass veranda when Danny walked in.

Looking up she smiled at Danny. “Slept well?” she asked her eyes still red and puffy from crying.

Shrugging Danny got himself a bowl and started looking around for cereals. “I guess so.” He answered remembering the nightmare he’d had. Finding the cornflakes at the top of a cabinet Mrs Oswald got up to help min only to find that Danny didn’t need any help. He got the cornflakes and milk before sitting down at the kitchen table.

“You want coffee?” Mrs Oswald asked walking over to the coffee machine and started to load it before Danny had answered. “What you’ve got planned for today?” She asked taking down two mugs from the cabinets.

Swallowing his cornflakes Danny raked his memories for things he had to do. “I’ve still got homework so might stop by the library, and my friend asked me to come to this poets evening tonight.”

Mrs Oswald made a face. “How late is this poets evening?” She asked.

“I don’t know, Would ask Sam but my phone is out of power.” He shrugged spooning the last cornflakes in to his mouth.

“I guess it’s going to be later than seven then?” Mrs Oswald said crossing her arms over her chest. Danny had a feeling he was getting the spill over anger from hers and Cody’s shouting match.

“Most likely.” He said trying to come up with a good argument as to why it would be alright for him to be out that late when she clearly didn’t like any of them being out past seven.

“You have school tomorrow and I’ve checked the busses so you can take one of them to school.” She said her sharp eyes making Danny shrink in his seat.

“Thanks, but I won’t be too late. And as I said, I’m going to do schoolwork at the library before so I can hang out with Sam in the evening.” He answered.

“You’re going on a date with your girlfriend.” Dannielle said from the door her face alight. Danny’s face turned red as he realized that Dannielle was right, he was going on a sort of date with his girl friend.

“You have a girlfriend?” Mrs Oswald asked surprised.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Danny said his face hot. “She’s just a friend who happens to be a girl and she just asked me to come to this thing because she…” Hesitating Danny wondered why exactly she’d asked him to join her. “She don’t want to go alone.” He got up and put away the cornflakes and milk where he found them.

The two women both looked at each other as if they knew something he didn’t, having an entire conversation with only their eyes. The coffee machine made a gurgling noise telling everyone that it finished brewing making Mrs Oswald turn away from Dannielle. Danny looked at his cousin mouthing ‘What?’

Giggling Dannielle shook her head. “Nothing clueless.” She said trying to hide her smile. “Mrs O I’m going out to meet Amanda. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” She turned around and was out of the house before Mrs Oswald realized that there was no sound of the front door opening or closing.

“Why am I always clueless.” Danny sighed taking the mug of coffee Mrs Oswald offered him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late didn't have any internet at home.


	22. Chapter 22

Sitting down in a corner of the library study room Danny opened his computer and started the book review for Mr Lancer. Dash entered the room at noon and sat down in front of Danny. There was a moment of quiet where Danny wrote and Dash fussed over his books and notes.

Dash was the one who broke the silence. He looked up at Danny and sighed. “You said I could read your review when I finished the book.”

Looking up from his computer Danny sighed. “Yeah I guess I did.” He saved his progress before turning the computer screen to Dash. 

Dash looked at Danny surprised. “You were serious?” He said pulling the computer towards him.

“Of course I was.” Danny huffed. Felling hungry he looked at the clock on his phone. “Hey I’m gonna grab some food from that café outside, Can I trust that you won’t copy my work?”

Smiling mischievously Dash looked up from the screen. “Nope but you can trust I won’t steal your crappy computer.” 

Rolling his eyes Danny got up and left Dash with his computer. Returning fifteen minutes later, a tuna sandwich in hand he found Dash still reading the text making notes in a small notebook beside him. Silently Danny sneaked around the bully to look over his shoulder and read what he was writing.

Swallowing a big bite of his sandwich Danny pointed to Dash’s notes. “You have the structure for a book review all wrong. You start by telling the reader what the book is about and then go on to point out facts.”

Startled by Danny’s sudden presence at his back Dash jumped and turned around to stare at him. Together they both wrote their book reviews for once actually working together rather than against each other. Finishing his work before Dash Danny picked up his next homework assignment when Dash spoke again. “Hey Fen-turd, How come you know all this but still get F on the tests?” He asked.

Tapping a pen against his notebook Danny looked up at Dash. “I don’t get F anymore I get D’s and C’s on my tests.” He finally said flicking through the pages of his chemistry book.

“How thou, I’ve had your sister try and tutor me and I never got any better.” Dash put down his pen and leaned back in his chair.

“That’s because you didn’t want to learn.” Danny said remembering the times he’d seen Dash in the kitchen at home with Jazz sitting beside him trying to explain something simple for him. “What makes you want my help anyways, you could just beat me up and steal my homework from me in school if you wanted.”

Sitting up straight Dash stared at Danny. “I never thought about doing it that way, but it makes sense I’ve taken lunch money from you that way.”

Face-palming Danny looked up at Dash. “Please don’t.”

Grinning Dash shook his head. “I won’t if you make sure I get good grades I won’t have to beat you up any more.”  
“In what world makes that any sense?” Danny asked hitting his head on the book in front of him. “How did I even become your study partner in the first place?” He mumbled.

Shrugging Dash went back to his writing, “What’s another word for wimp?” he asked.

“Google it.” Danny suggested picking up his own phone and looking at the time he cursed. “Sorry have to go.” He said shoving down his things in to his bag.

“Oi you said you were going to proofread my work!” Dash growled at Danny who was out of the room before he could answer back.


	23. Chapter 23

It had been annoying to ask permission to hang out with Sam, at home he usually told his parents that he was hanging out with his friends and they gave him a time to be home by if he didn’t say that he was staying over. His parents hardly cared if the next day was a school day or not as long as they could reach Danny. Mrs Oswald however made him promise that he’d be home by nine and that he would do his schoolwork as he said he would.

After texting Sam that morning Danny had gotten a time to pick her up, stopping by Mrs Oswald’s house he left his bag in his room and flew off to Sam’s home. Ringing the doorbell Danny was not surprised to find Sam’s Dad opening it.

“Hallo can I help you?” he said giving Danny the disapproving look he always seemed to save for Sam’s friends.  
“Is Sam in?” Danny asked getting straight to the point.

Mr Manson sighed. “She’s in her green house. You want me to get her?” he asked all too willing to close the door in Danny’s face but having too much manners to do so.

“It’s fine, I know the way.” Danny said, turning on one heel he jogged around the house to the back garden where Sam had her large green house.

Stopping by the front door he saw a sign that hadn’t been there the last time. Leaning forward he read it:

To all visitors please:  
Knock before entering,  
Keep the door closed,  
Don’t touch anything without permission,  
Plants likes it when you talk to them, Do not spray air freshener on them.  
Enter only when I am here.  
With the promise of great punishment if you break these rules – Sam.

Knocking on the glass door Danny entered. “Hey Sam you in here!” He called out in to the stuffy greenhouse closing the door behind him. He did not want to find out what Sam had planned for whoever broke her rules.

“Danny! Shit don’t come in!” Sam called from the other end of the green house where she had a grape vine climbing the walls over her workbench.

Curiously Danny took another step in side. “Why not.” He asked his nose itching with all the smells coming from the many plants.

Pulling of her gardening gloves Sam hurried over, “Cus I have a plant here you won’t…” Danny sneezed. Sighing Sam took his hand and they both walked out in to the crisp outdoors air. “Sorry, you can’t go in to my greenhouse for a while.” She said apologetically as Danny sneezed again.

“What the heck have you got in there.” He asked rubbing his itching nose already having an idea of what She didn’t want him to see.

“Just a blood blossom bush.” She said innocently her sharp eyes on Danny. “Are you going to be alright, you won’t have another allergic reaction will you?”

Sneezing a final time Danny shook his head. “No not if I don’t breathe in the pollen or get scratched by the thorns. Why do you have a blood blossom in your green house?” He asked rubbing his nose again.

“It maketh a tasty treat.” Sam smiled earning a ‘are you serious’ look from Danny. “Come on let’s go inside I have to change before we can go.” She said taking Danny’s arm and pulling him in to the house.

“Seriously thou, Sam what are you doing with that flower?” He asked as they walked past the pastel kitchen were Sam’s parents were sitting giving Danny disapproving looks over their ipads.

“I was thinking of sending some over to Vlad as a thank you for not killing you sort of gift.” She said walking in to her huge bedroom. “Take a seat I’ll be just a moment.” She smiled before walking behind a privacy screen.

“You know that flower will kill him just as easily as it will me.” Danny said sitting down in Sam’s computer chair.

“I know.” Sam said her arms showing above the screen as she pulled of the t-shirt she’d been wearing in the greenhouse. “I was more thinking of making it in to incense, or itching powder. You know something that would make him sneeze every time he entered the room or itch all over.”

“Couldn’t you just send them as a gift to his office and write something that makes it hard for him to turn it away?” He asked looking away from the screen hiding Sam, his face feeling warm.

“I was thinking of that in the beginning but seeing as I got a large bush I was thinking of doing something more.” Sam said moving around behind the screen.

“Better do something that can’t be tracked back to you or Vlad will get his revenge on us.” Danny said flicking through the pages of a book.

“Of course I will.” Sam said stepping out from behind the screen wearing a black dress that looked oddly familiar.  
“Hey that’s the dress from London.” Danny said when light hit it making it shimmer in green.

Smiling Sam turned around in the Victorian dress. “I may have done some alteration to make it fit in to the 21centuary.” She said pulling up the hem of the skirt till the front only went down to her knees. “A bit more steampunk don’t you think?” she asked.

His mouth suddenly gone dry Danny nodded. “Yeah, but I thought you were a Goth.” He said watching as Sam put on her heavy combat boots.

“It’s black, It’s Goth.” Sam said putting down her boot a little to hard.

 

The Goth hangout Skulk and Lurk were packed with other goths and unlike what people from the outside might think the atmosphere wasn’t dark or gloomy except for the décor of the place reminding Danny slightly of the people who showed up to watch circus gothica. Sam introduced Danny to some of her friends in the community and it wasn’t long before they were seated at a table listening to the people preforming their poetry as they talked.

It was getting close to nine when Sam got up to take the mic. Danny watched her walk up on to the stage to warm applauds. “Hallo all you children of the night.” She said and smiled showing her fake fangs. “I like to read my poem Night Town.” She looked at Danny who at just that moment felt a shiver go up his spine.

Both Sam and Danny saw his breath on the air. Lowering her eyes to her small note book she nodded before turning to the audience. Feeling torn between his duty to protect the town and his promise Danny got up from his seat and slowly made his way through the crowd listening to every word Sam said.

Going in to the men’s bathroom he hid in a stall, “Going ghost.” He sighed the rings of light changing him in a flash. Flying out of the empty bathroom Danny waved at Sam before leaving the Goth hangout.

Hovering over the hangout Danny scanned the streets around him looking for the familiar glow coming from any ghost. The hairs on the back of his neck tried to crawl away and Danny flinched around a shield snapping in to place in front of him. Just in time to stop the snarling tiger ghost from carving out his spine.

“Honestly, I’m more of a dog person.” He said pushing the ghost away from his shield sending blast of ghost ray at it.

The tiger skirted around and launched itself at Danny clawing through his intangible midsection. “Here kitty kitty, I’ve got a dot of light for you to catch.” He taunted sending a ball of green power at the tiger.

Having fought the tiger ghost before Danny kept firing from a safe distance giving himself enough time and space to avoid the sharp claws. However the last time he hadn’t been the one to catch the ghost but Sam. When he thought about it Sam or Tucker were usually the once to catch the ghosts in the thermos, Danny just made sure they were at the right spot at the right time.

Fighting an agile opponent wasn’t simple. Danny often relied on his instincts to avoid the ghosts sudden attacks while he tried to get the ghost to stay still long enough for him to blast it in the face. He almost had the ghost in the corner he wanted when his phone started to ring.

Cursing and dodging the attack from the feline ghost Danny fished out his phone and glanced at the caller id sending a ghost ray at the ghost as he did. Cursing even louder Danny picked up. “I’m late I’m sorry:” He said jumping over greetings and ghost tiger.

“Yes you are.” Mrs Oswald said in the other end. “Where are you?” she asked sounding very annoyed.

“Um.” Danny began doing his best to sound calm on the phone and at the same time keep the attacking ghost at bay. “I’m on my way, can I call you back there’s a lot of traffic.” He said diving down in to the slow city traffic before getting clawed to bits.

“You aren’t driving so you can talk, where are you?” The static of the phone made the woman’s voice sound almost like that of a ghost.

“On my way.” Danny said again jumping back as claws swiped at his midsection. “And what’s to say that I’m not driving, I’m 16 you know.” He took the phone away from his ear to get a good grip on the tiger and swung it over his hip and in to the oncoming traffic.

Quickly putting the phone back against his ear he listened to Mrs Oswald’s answer. “You may be 16, but you don’t have a license yet and as far as I know not even a car. And what’s that sound?”

Swallowing Danny landed on top of a building his eyes scanning the streets once more for the tiger ghost. “That would be traffic, and I do have a car, it just needs fixing before I can drive it.” He sank down to sit on his heels, his body ready to leap in to action. “Believe me Mrs Oswald I’m on my way back, just give me 15 min and I’ll be at the door.” He said feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise again.

“Alright 15 min not any later than that.” She said and hung up just as the tiger ghost came out of nowhere its sharp claws cutting through the air at Danny.

Instinctively Danny raised his arms to protect his face and felt the viciously sharp claws cut in to his arms. Screaming in pain Danny took advantage of the closeness to the beast and blasted it in the face.

The tiger ghost rolled across the roof as Danny fumbled at his belt for the Fenton Thermos. He saw the ghost regain its footing and turn to charge him again. Panicking slightly Danny fingers slipped over the ectoplasm on his hands. Taking a step back he felt the ground disappear under his feet’s and then the tiger pounced at him.

Never in his life had he ever appreciated the simple pop the thermos made when the lid plopped of. Aiming the thing at the tiger on top of him he flinched as it tried to claw at his face, missing. Floating on his back a foot away from the roof top Danny took deep breaths before trying to slow down his racing heart.

Returning to the roof he picked up his dropped phone and winced at the cracked screen. That was going to be a big chunk out of his allowance to fix. Attaching the caped thermos to his belt he typed out an apology to Sam before returning to Wishing Hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright a bit of a long chapter but this is the finishing stretch so bear with me.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night that can't end to soon keeps getting on Danny's nerves.

Even if Danny was flying back to Wishing hill at his top speed it still took him 20 minutes to get there. He landed in a dark spot between two large bushes but before turning back to Fenton he glanced down at his still bleeding arms. If he didn’t stop the bleeding now Mrs Oswald was going to see the blood stains later. He didn’t have his first aid kit with him and it would take him to long to stich up and bandage the cuts.

“I might regret this.” Danny murmured before placing his hands over the cuts and closing his eyes he forced himself to breathe slowly. The warm ectoplasm flowing from the wounds slowly turned cold and stiff. Opening his eyes Danny saw a thin layer of hard ice around his arms.

Making sure that his fingers and hands were still working he changed back to Fenton and hurried down the street towards the house, all the time tugging at the sleeves of his hoody making sure that the wounds weren’t visible. Jogging down the street Danny could see the lights on in his cousins room as well as in the kitchen but not in Cody’s room.

Slowing down his pace as he reached the white picket fence Danny looked in through the kitchen window and saw Mrs Oswald standing in front of her son apparently lecturing him. Listening he could hear what the conversation was about, Cody had been late home as well. Trying to defend his reason for being late Mrs Oswald cut him off. “It doesn’t matter You are supposed to be the example for the kids we take in! You call when you know you’ll be late and you don’t come home stinking of cigarette smoke!”

Cody shrugged, he’d clearly stopped listening to his mother a long time ago. “Whatever, Just so you know mom I wasn’t the one smoking, and it would be a lot easier to call you if I knew you were going to say yes.” He walked past his mother and stopped in the door. “Besides you won’t give that Fenton kid the same lecture for being late as you give me.” He disappeared in to the hall leaving his mother alone in the kitchen.

Waiting till he could see the lights flick on in Cody’s room Danny took a deep breath, checked that the ice was still stopping the bleeding he entered the house. He’d barely closed the door before Mrs Oswald was in the hall. “You are late.” She said in a steely tone. 

“Sorry, I got held up.” Danny sighed slumping his shoulders and lowering his head making sure that he looked regretful.

“Held up by what, it’s 10:16pm the bus should have arrived ten minutes ago and it doesn’t take more than five to walk here.” She crossed her arms over her chest the sharp eyes on Danny again.

“I didn’t take the bus, a friend gave me a ride. We got held up by a ghost attacking Amity Park.” Danny explained trying to keep his lie as close to the truth as possible.

“Now I know you are lying.” Mrs Oswald said making Danny flinch. How did she know she couldn’t check his facts that fast. “I’ve been looking through social media all night and there was no report of a ghost attacking Amity Park causing a delay in traffic.”

“There wasn’t?” Danny asked not having to fake the surprise he felt.

“No there was a delay however, because of some kid walking out on to the highway.” Her eyes kept Danny nailed to the sport. “I can believe that ghost sometimes cause disturbances in the everyday life of people but don’t use it as an excuse for being late. Now tell me the truth Daniel.”

Biting his lower lip Danny tried to think of a better explanation to why he was late and how he’d gotten home. “I… I walked Sam home, she was last on stage and I didn’t want to miss it or let her walk home by herself, I missed the buss and hitched a ride back here.” He avoided eye contact knowing that his lie would be seen through the moment someone looked him in the eyes.

“You hitched a ride from some stranger and when I called you said you were driving?” She put her hands on her hips. “Can you explain why you were lying to me back then instead of telling the truth.”

Scratching the back of his neck Danny glanced up at Mrs Oswald and saw two figures poke their heads out over the second floor landing, Cody and Dannielle were both eavesdropping. “I said I was busy. I didn’t remember the way so I was using my phones gps to guide the driver. And I believe you were the one implying that I was driving not I.” 

Blinking Mrs Oswald’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “You’re right I did.” She sighed the anger she’d been holding in ebbing away. “You should have called the moment you knew you were going to be late, I was up worrying about you.” She said and Danny saw Cody make a face before turning away. 

“That’s very kind of you Mrs Oswald, but you don’t have to I can take care of myself.” Once more lowering his head and looking down at his shoes Danny tried to look the part of someone regretting his actions. “I’m sorry I was late, it won’t happen again.” He said tugging at the hem of his sleeves.

Sighing Mrs Oswald took a step to the side. “Get ready for bed, you have to get up earlier tomorrow if you want to catch the bus.” She said and watched as Danny walked past her and hurried in to his room.

 

Waiting till everyone was asleep Danny sneaked in to the bathroom his first aid kit under an arm. He’d kept the ice over his arms to stop the bleeding but as soon as he melted it the blood started flowing again. Careful so as not to leave any bloodstains, Danny cleaned out the cuts with disinfectant hoping that it wasn’t too late to stop an infection, who knew where the tigers claws had been.

A couple of minutes later Danny wrapped his forearms in bandages. His suturing skills were great when he had the use of both hands, the stiches on his forearms weren’t as neat as he normally did and the once on his right arm could have been done better by someone who stitched human flesh together for their first time.

Gathering his things up he disposed of all the evidence that he’d been hurt and snuck back down stairs to his room. Opening the door to his bedroom he found that it was ajar. His instincts screamed at him and a second later ice cold water splashed over his head and shoulders making him draw in a deep breath.

The metal bucket hitting the floor an inch away from his toes made a loud noise. Cursing Danny snuck in to his room as he heard the sounds of Mrs Oswald moving on the second floor. He kicked the first aid kit in under his bed and grabbed his hoody putting it on as Mrs Oswald came running down the stairs.

Halting outside of Danny’s door she looked at the scene in front of her. Danny standing in the room, wearing only a pair of boxers and a hoody, his hair soaking wet a bucket just inside of the door and a large puddle of water in front of her. “What happened.” She asked in a low voice to keep the others from waking but Danny knew they were both awake, he’d heard them get up.

“Some prank.” Danny sighed grabbing his towel from that morning and started to clean up the water.

Mrs Oswald walked over to the cleaning cupboard and got herself a mop and bucket. “Here let me.” She said and with the sort of efficiency that only comes from a lot of practice she had the water puddle cleaned up. “I’ll get you a towel.” She said as she carried out the bucket of water.

Shivering Danny phased out of his wet t-shirt and tossed it onto the pile of clothes that were gathering in a corner of his room. Mrs Oswald returned a moment later with a towel that she handed Danny. “Are you alright?” She asked the sharp eyes watching Danny like a hawk.

“I’m fine. Only tired.” Danny yawned rubbing his hair dry. 

Mrs Oswald gave Danny a raised eyebrow. “What were you doing up so late, I thought you’d gone to sleep.” She asked showing no signs of wanting to go back to sleep herself.

“I went to the bathroom, Is that a crime?” Danny growled throwing the towel on to his chair. “If you don’t mind I’m going back to sleep now.” He said and turned around to crawl back in to his bed, still shivering from the ice shower.

Slowly closing Danny’s bedroom door Mrs Oswald left it opened a crack as she watched Danny settle in under the blankets. Once she was sure he’d gone to sleep she closed the door and walked back up to her own bedroom, hearing the sounds of someone moving as she past Cody’s room.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monday and school is as always a living warzone.

Never really relaxing Danny couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned under his blankets all through the night until he finally gave up on sleep three minutes before his alarm would go off. Sighing he got the medicine box from his backpack and sent Vlad a picture of him putting the pills in his mouth and one showing the empty box marked Monday.

As Danny was putting on a pair of jeans his phone buzzed. Looking at it, Vlad had answered the message with a thumbs up emoji and some animal that looked like a dog. Annoyed at the older man Danny threw his phone in to his backpack and finished getting dressed.

He was sitting by the table in the dark kitchen when Mrs Oswald walked in and jumped when she saw him as the lights flickered on. “There’s coffee if you want.” Danny said sipping at his own mug, nodding at the coffee machine.

Glancing at the kitchen clock Mrs Oswald gave Danny one of her raised eyebrows. “How long have you been awake?” she asked filling a cup of coffee for herself. Shrugging Danny eat his cornflakes. “You don’t have to hurry the bus won’t leave for another 20 minutes.” She said sipping at her coffee and then looked at it in surprise.

“To strong?” Danny asked knowing that he often made the coffee too strong for some peoples taste.

Shaking her head Mrs Oswald put down her mug. “Just a bit.” She said adding some milk to it. “Did you get any sleep?” she asked as she started to put out breakfast for the others. Again Danny shrugged. Mrs Oswald tried again to start a conversation but Danny only finished his breakfast and drank another cup of coffee.

“I’ll be off then.” He yawned when Dannielle bounced down the stairs.

“Have a nice day and don’t forget to put on a jacket it’s cold outside.” Mrs Oswald said from the kitchen before greeting Dannielle. Looking at the hooks beside the door Danny couldn’t find his jacket. Sighing he hitched his backpack over his right shoulder and left the house.

 

Not even a slow flight through icy clouds heavy with rain woke Danny from his half sleep. He ended up flying in the wrong directions a couple of times before finally reaching Casper High, in time to join the steady stream of students walking in to the school building.

Standing in front of his locker and trying to remember the combination something warm touched his cheek. Flinching Danny looked up to find Sam standing beside him two paper cups in her hands. “Morning sleepy head.” She said handing Danny one of the cups. “Thought you might need this.”

“Thanks.” Danny said bringing the mug up to his nose sniffing. “Is it coffee or tea?” he asked sipping at it.

“Both.” Sam answered pushing Danny out of the way and opened his locker for him. “You’ve seen Tucker yet?” She asked stepping aside so Danny could put away his things.

“No.” Danny yawned and shoved all his things in to the locker. Sighing he bit his lip. “Hey Sam I not sure how to say this but…” he was cut off by Tucker yawning loudly beside him.

“Good morning my friends.” He said rubbing at his eyes.

Turning around to answer Tucker Danny blinked. His friend looked like Danny felt; he had bags under his eyes, marks on the side of his face from his pillow and looked as if he’d been sleepwalking when he got dressed. “Morning, What happened to you?” Danny asked glancing over at Sam who shrugged.

“Lost track of time.” Tucker said opening his own locker. “Played Doom 2 with Valeri all night.” He grinned. “We found the secret entrance to the caves of horror.”

“Sense when is Valeri in to gaming?” Sam asked drinking her coffee.

“Sense she’s stuck at home for the next two weeks on doctors’ orders.” Tucker answered taking out school books and replacing them with others.

“So she’s home now.” Danny said relived noticing how his shoulders relaxed. “And how come I’m the one fighting ghost all night and you are the one showing up to school half dressed.”

“I’m not half dressed.” Tucker said closing his locker door.

“Is that the tag on the front of your t-shirt?” Sam asked pointing. Tucker looked down and she flicked his nose. “Got yah.” She giggled as the school bell rang. “And there starts another week of learning what the government decides is alright for young minds to learn. Come on we don’t want to be late for English.”

However strong Sam’s coffee/tea was it didn’t help keep Danny awake during the English class and he didn’t even bother to try and stay awake for the other classes until the bell rang for lunch and even then he was amazed that he didn’t fall asleep in his meatloaf.

“Here try this.” Tucker said putting a red bull can in front of Danny before opening one of his own.

“You know what’s in that stuff right?” Sam asked giving Tucker a disapproving look.

“Liquid energy.” Tucker said drinking his own energy drink.

Sighing Danny opened the can. He’d avoided energy drinks ever scenes he tasted one his dad had made, it had given him the energy boost as promised but the sugar high made it hard to concentrate and the inevitable sugar crash wasn’t worth it.

Once again Sam and Tucker were arguing, this time over the benefits and risks involved in drinking energy drinks. Taking a gulp from his can Danny choked and almost spat it out before forcing himself to swallow, rubbing his tongue on his sleeve.

“See taste like crap and it isn’t even healthy for you.” Sam said as if Danny had just proven her point.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, I practically live on this stuff and I am alright.” Tucker countered gulping down his own drink.

“You also only eat meat and your first vegetable in 14 years was a year ago.” Sam said taking a large bite out of her own bag lunch.

“Sorry Tuck but I’m with Sam on this one.” Danny said pushing the can over to Tucker. “Taste like…” he shudder at the thought of what it actually tasted like. “Tastes like sugar and chemicals. It’s too sweet.”

Shrugging Tucker finished his own can. “Suit yourself.” He took the can Danny had started on and finished that one as well.

Turning his attention back to his meatloaf Danny made an effort to stay awake. He’d almost finished his food when someone shouted at them. “Hey nerds Incoming.” All the nerds in the cafeteria turned around to look at the speaker. An A-list sophomore student from the football team, kicked a ball at the three friends.

Tucker and Sam both dodged but Danny who was slow to react lifted his arms and took the hard ball on the back of his forearms. Pain flared up forcing Danny to bit down on a cry.

“Real mature!” Sam shouted back and picked up the ball from where it had landed. With the ease she always had in sports, she threw the ball back at the jerk. She would have ignored the laughing guys if it hadn’t been for Mr Lancer who walked in to the cafeteria at just that moment.

It was really hard for them to explain that it wasn’t Sam’s fault but the jerk who’d thrown the ball. No one wanted to get in to trouble with the teachers or any of the A-list students making it hard for Mr Lancer to judge fairly, having only seen Sam throw the ball. She got away with a warning but was in a bad mood the rest of the day.

When school finally ended Danny walked with his friends till they had to split. “You want to come over to my place?” Tucker asked Danny as Sam walked of in the direction of her home. “I’ve got this new controller from ebay, you wouldn’t believe what some people practically give away.”

“Can’t, I have to take care of this ghost in the thermos and then there are those extra assignments I have to do because I missed school three days last week.” Danny sighed turning to go home. “I’ll see you on patrol tonight.” He yawned waving goodbye to his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might have been the last thing I added to the story haven written moste of it in my head before I put my fingers to the keys.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home, and not home. The pain of seeing his parents hurt and the pain of knowing that they love him till the end of the world.

Making his way home to the Fenton Works Danny turned invisible a block away from the building and phased through the front door. Expecting to find his parents either working on some new invention or playing chess in the living room Danny was surprised to find them sitting in the kitchen with a person he’d only met once before.  
“…to say this but that is how things are right now.” Mrs Stewarts said sitting across the kitchen table from Maddie and Jack Fenton.

“You can’t be serious.” Danny’s dad said rising in his chair. “We could never harm our son! Never!” he slammed his palm down on the table earning him a raised eyebrow from Mrs Stewarts.

“Jack, sit down.” Maddie said putting a hand over her husband’s. “Mrs Stewarts, I understand what you are saying but where is the evidence to support these accusations. What my husband says is true we would never do anything that could harm our children.”

Mrs Stewarts sighed and lifted her Ipad from the table turning on the screen. “Mr and Mrs Fenton there is plenty of evidence. Starting with his records from Casper High, there is enough to raise suspicions.” She cleared her throat. “Plenty of his teachers have reported that he arrives late for class with no excuse and often bruised.” She swiped at the screen an eye on the Fenton’s watching their reactions. “I’m sure you’ve already heard about this from the school as well as. The reports of him sleeping in class and leaving in the middle of lessons.”

Wriggling her fingers between her husband’s Maddie squeezed his hand. “Yes the school often reports this and Danny often have an explanation to why he misses class, and why he falls asleep. Like all the teenagers he stays glued to his phone or computer during his free time and forgets to sleep.” Jack nodded keeping his mouth shut and letting his wife do the talking.

Swiping her finger over the screen Mrs Stewarts brought up photos of Danny. “I have reports from three doctors here who’ve also noted the boy’s obvious lack of sleep. And that he has an abnormal tolerance to pain.” She turned the tablet to show the parents the photos. “And there is the questions how he got all these scars.” She flipped through the pictures of Danny standing shirtless against a white background. “To quote a Dr Andrew, ‘The amount of scars on Daniel’s body is something I would have expected to see on the body of a veteran US marine not a teenager.’” Sharp eyes watched the two Fenton’s as they exchanged looks. “The ME who examined your son for signs of abuse said that the scars are from wounds deep enough to leave scars but not life threatening, and there are signs of him having received medical treatment but there are no records of him visiting an ER before November.”

Lifting her eyes from the tablet Maddie Fenton glared at Mrs Stewarts. ”He was in an accident a little over a year ago where he got hurt. The mayors car exploded beside him.” She pointed at the picture of Danny staring empty eyed in to the camera. “But he has never been this thin or had this look in his eyes.”

Sighing Mrs Stewarts took back the tablet and swiped to another page of text. “In all these social cases the child is required to talk to a psychiatrist.” She said scrolling down a page. “After an hour with Daniel the psychiatrist wrote up a report on the session were she states that, ‘the boy is showing clear signs of depression, it is obvious that he has trouble at home seeing as he avoids talking about his parents and changes subject whenever we talk about family.”

“What!” Both the adult Fenton’s exclaimed.

“How the fuck did she get depression out of me sitting on that cold couch doing my homework?” Danny asked having turned visible in the door.

A lot of things happened all at once. His parents jumped out of their chairs screaming his name before his dad embraced him hard enough that Danny could hear his bones creaking. “Jack you’re suffocating him.” His mom said making her husband let go of their son so that she could hug him whit equal bone crushing strength. Danny didn’t fight his parents loving embrace, he’d rather be crushed by their love than the guilt he’d been feeling every time he’d past them the other days.

“Daniel! What are you doing here?” Mrs Stewarts asked standing half way out of her chair. She’d been on her way to stop the two parents but seeing how they weren’t hurting him she’d halted half way up.

“Sweetie, I’ve missed you, are you alright are you getting enough sleep are they treating you right wherever it is these people sent you?” Maddie asked cradling Danny’s face in her hands.

“You getting enough to eat at that place Danny boy, you look a little thin?” Jack asked ruffling Danny’s hair.

“I’m fine mom, yes I get enough to eat you don’t have to worry about me.” Danny said trying his best to get away from his father’s large hand. “I’ve missed you too.”

“Daniel!” Mrs Stewarts said in a harder tone of voice. “We’ve told you that you couldn’t go home, this will only complicate things even more for you and your parents.”

The three Fenton turned steely eyes on the social worker. Danny made his mother let go of his face as he leveled his ice blue eyes on Mrs Stewarts. “Yeah but answer me this. How can a psychiatrist diagnose me with depression when I didn’t say a word to her during the entire time I was in her cold office?”

Blinking Mrs Stewarts looked down at her tablet. “That’s not what her report says.” She noted flicking through it.

Tightening her grip on Danny his mom cleared her throat. “Then we are back to square one, where are your proof that we are hurting our boy in any way?”

Shaking her head Mrs Stewarts straightened. “There are more evidence Mrs Fenton. When our people went over your house last week we found among other things a diary kept by your daughter who is away at college right now I believe.”

“You looked in my sister’s personal diary.” Danny said fearing what his sister might have written about him.

“Yes, just as we looked through your computer and books before giving them to you.” Mrs Stewarts said annoyance flickering in her eyes. “And in the diary your sister writes that your parent’s strapped you to a spinning table to, and I quote ‘spin the crazy out of you.’ When you were stressed out and needed to relax.”

All the Fentons shrugged back. “It was just a misunderstanding.” Jack began. “We didn’t hurt him.” Danny’s mom continued.

“Turned out, the ghost that was pissing me off could only be seen by kids. I think Jazz wrote that to, or do you want me to call her so she can tell you herself.” Danny said tired of being pushed around. “Besides how can you be sure the things she writes are true, it can just as easily be fiction.” He added hoping that Jazz hadn’t written down his secret.

Feeling his mother squish his shoulders Danny looked up at her. “There is no proofer you have that can confirm or deny the charges put on us.” She began. “You can see for yourself right now that we care for our son and the only way that any of the accusations are going to stick is if Danny himself confirms them.” Jack put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Seeing as the psychiatrist you have clearly fabricated a false report there needs to be a new one before anything can happen. I suggest you pack up your things and make that happen.”

Mrs Stewarts swallowed and looked down on her tablet. Sighing she looked up at Danny. “You said you didn’t say anything to Dr Art Ceps during your session, you only did your homework?”

Danny nodded. “We had a problem with a student counselor once, after that I’m a bit suspicious of who I open up to, you understand, no normal person spills all their secrets to some stranger.” He said remembering the depressing Spirit Week.

Crossing her arms over her chest Mrs Stewarts shook her head. “You aren’t making this easy for us.” She sighed. “I have to schedule a new meeting with a new psychiatrist, and there is the problem we are having now. The rules are there to protect you and to make things easier.” Looking at Mr and Mrs Fenton she smiled softly. “I’ll do what I can to look in to this mess but you all have to be honest with us so we can return Daniel to you with a good conscience.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something but got an elbow in the ribs to shut him up. “I understand that but would you give us some time with Danny now we haven’t seen him in over a week?” Maddie asked pressing Danny closer to her chest.

Sighing Mrs Stewarts shook her head. “I’m sorry but I can’t we have more things to go over, it’s best if Daniel isn’t here.”

“Why if it’s me you are talking about shouldn’t I have the right to be here?” Danny asked annoyed at being treated like a child when he was practically an adult.

“You’re right son.” Jack said squeezing Danny’s shoulder harder. Danny was somewhat relieved that it was his right shoulder and not the left. “You are practically an adult, and these are things that involves the whole family. You should stay.”

Suspecting that they were just making excuses to spend time together Mrs Stewarts couldn’t help but see the logic in the arguments. She eventually agreed to Danny staying but kept her sharp eyes on the three all the time watching for any kinds of signals between them.

When it was time to leave Mrs Stewarts offered to drive Danny back to Mrs Oswald’s. Danny declined the offer saying he rather take the bus and stop by the library before returning, something about having to look for a jacket. Agreeing to this Mrs Stewarts didn’t take her eyes of Danny before he was on the bus to Wishing Hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright uploading a bit earlier this time in case I lose internet again. If you like the stories there will be more, next one is written I just have to go through it again and fix small mistakes.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooo Danny's in trouble... Again

Sitting in the back of the buss Danny was dosing of when he shivered and saw his breath on the air in front of him. Growling curses in as many languages he could, Danny looked around the bus making sure that no one saw him when he phase through the backseat at the last bus stop before the highway.

“Going ghost.” He said running in to an alley. There was a flash of light and Phantom flew out. Spotting the two ectopuses diving from the sky at a shopping mall Danny growled. “Can’t you leave my town alone for one f-ing day!” As he flew at them ready to let out some of his frustration on the two ghosts.

 

Too tired to go to the library after his fight with the ectopuses, now safely stored in his thermos together with the tiger ghost, Danny flew back to his room in Mrs Oswald’s house. He landed on the unmade bed and changed back, looking down at his forearms as blood started to color the sleeves of his shirt red.

Taking of the bandages on his arms Danny groaned. Almost all the stiches had popped and the wounds had reopened. “If I could only get one day without any ghost attacks these wouldn’t be a problem.” He said to himself trying to wipe the blood of his skin before making his right arm intangible and sticking it through the matrass searching around for his first aid kit.

Getting his hands on the metal box Danny lifted it up on to the bed and opened it. Looking through his supplies he got even more annoyed. There were thread and needle to stich up the cuts but no bandages left. “I refilled this last week.” He growled shuffling things around in the box as if he was miraculously going to find more bandages that way.

Angrily he closed the lid of the box and leaned his back against the wall trying to think of what else he could do. Looking down at the still bleeding cuts he forced his frost powers down his arms making the bleeding stop. That’s a start, he thought taking slow calming breaths, ‘what’s next?’ He dried of the blood and started taking out the remaining stitches from his late night work.

Once he’d gotten the last of the stiches out of his skin he looked down at his first aid kit again. Still no bandages. He was looking down at the cuts on his arms when there was a knock at the door that made him jump. “Daniel are you in there, dinners ready.” Mrs Oswald said through the door.

Panicking Danny phased his first aid kit back down through the mattress. “Yeah just a sec.” He said and looked around the room for a new shirt. He saw one hanging on the desk chair and lunged for it tripping over his crossed legs and landed hard on his left shoulder.

There was no way Mrs Oswald hadn’t heard his fall and a moment later her voice came through the door again. “Is everything alright in there?” She asked worry and suspicion in her voice.

“Yes.” Danny growled getting to his feet’s massaging his hurting shoulder. “I’ll be right there.” He said his voice wavering unintentionally.

There was the click from the door handle being turned. “Are you sure?” Mrs Oswald asked opening the door. For a split second Danny considered going invisible but then Mrs Oswald poked her head in and her eyes landed on Danny. He could see her eyes go from the bloodstained sleeves of his shirt to the cuts on his arms and then her eyes hardened as she came to a conclusion. “What are you doing?” She asked in a cold voice making Danny take a step back.

“Nothing.” He answered having no idea of what to say or how to handle the situation. Trying his best to hide the injuries Danny put his arms behind his back, but the damage was already done.

Mrs Oswald stepped in to the room closing the door behind her. “What’s that on your arms?” She asked in that same emotionless voice.

“Nothing.” Danny said again avoiding eye contact.

“Show me.” Mrs Oswald ordered taking a step closer to Danny.

“Show you what?” he asked biting his lower lip, trying to think of a way out of the situation.

“Don’t play games with me Daniel, show me your arms Now.” Anger flared in her eyes giving Danny a sudden taste of BBQ.

Eyes darting all over the room for something to distract the woman Danny’s eyes halted on the bloody bandages on the bed. Mrs Oswald saw his eye movement and glanced to her side seeing the bandages as well. Faster than Danny would have thought any human could move she got a grip on Danny’s left arm and pulled it away from his back before he could resist.

Seven bloody cuts went horizontally across his forearm, beads of blood glimmering in the soft light. Sharp eyes turned on Danny and she got his other hand out from behind him seeing six similar cuts on that arm as well. “What is the meaning of this?” She asked cold fury in her voice.

“It’s not what you think.” Danny said swallowing hard.

“Oh yeah. What do I think this is?” She asked sounding like a completely different person to the one he’d gotten to know.

“It was a cat, nothing else.” Danny said trying to explain without actually saying the truth.

“A cat. This is not the scratches of a cat.” She growled making sure that Danny could see the cuts on his arms. “What do you think you are doing hurting yourself in this way?”

Biting down harder on his lip Danny tasted blood. “I didn’t do this to myself.” He said jerking his arms out of the woman’s hands feeling the anger he’d tried to keep under control rise in him. “I hate getting hurt, I hate getting injured, why would I cut myself if I hated it so much!” He asked his voice rising in volume.

“I don’t know what you think, so you tell me Daniel. Why are you cutting yourself? What is making you feel so bad that hurting yourself feels right?” She asked raising her own voice.

“I never have and never will.” Danny growled sounding less like himself.

“I don’t believe you. If you hadn’t lied to me before I might have but I won’t stand for this kind of behavior in my house.” She answered glaring in to Danny’s cold eyes.

“No but you’d stand for it if it was your own son. The only time you seemed to notice him is when he is doing something you don’t like. Or haven’t you noticed that that’s how it is, cus I have.” Danny shot back getting a satisfying feeling seeing the woman’s expression change.

“Don’t you talk about my son like that. At least he has a home where he is loved.”

“Don’t you go there.” Danny said the anger in his chest solidifying. “You think this is a good home? It is just a façade, like all the other places, like every home. You treat us like damaged goods, you watch us like a hawk but you don’t see how you hurt the people around you.” Balling his hands in to fists he tried to keep the anger under control.

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand and don’t turn this on me.” Mrs Oswald began.

“I understand perfectly well that Cody want us gone so he can get your attention for once. I understand that my cousin closes herself of from the rest of us because she is scared. She was crying on top of the stair yesterday because you were shouting at your son saying that it was the price of happiness.” Mrs Oswald blinked and took a step back from Danny. “Don’t you judge me for what you think you know. I get enough of that from everybody else.” He tugged down the sleeves of his shirt covering the cuts on his arms. “I admit that I’m just a teenager who don’t know shit about you and your family, but I know that I rather be home with my parents right now, who will actually listen to my explanation instead of jumping to conclusions!” He shoved his way past the woman and walked out in to the hall before she could stop him.

“Where do you think you’re going!” She called after Danny, seeing him head for the front door.

“Away from here!” Danny answered getting a glimpse of Cody and Dannielle in the kitchen both staring at him as he passed. Dannielle had obviously heard every word of what had been said.

“You are not leaving! Not until we’ve talked this through.” Mrs Oswald said coming after Danny.

Turning around in the door way Danny glared at Mrs Oswald. “Leave me alone.” He growled his voice much lower and deeper than before. Spinning around he slammed the door closed behind him.


	28. Chapter 28

The sound of the door slamming closed echoed down the street as Danny walked along the pavement droplets of rain hitting his face. He needed to get away, to think and be alone. Wiping water from his eyes he looked around the residential street for a good spot where he could change in to Phantom unnoticed.

A loud and annoying yapping brought his thoughts back to the now making him looked down at the small animal making the noise. A tiny dog jumped around his legs, barking and scratching as it tried to get his attention. Danny bent down to pet the dog confused as to what it was doing there without a collar.

“Hey stop that Chihuahua.” A broad shoulder figure called as he ran up to Danny and stopped a surprised look on his face. “Fenton! What you doing here?” Dash asked pushing back the hood of his raincoat.

Danny blinked up at the big jockey equally surprised to find him in Wishing Hills residential neighborhood as Dash was. “Walking. What are you doing here?” He asked scratching the happy dog behind the ear earning him slobby doggy kisses.

“Walking Pookie. Why are you walking here it’s a bit far away from Amity Park?” Dash asked kneeling down to put a pink collar with metal spikes around the dogs neck. The little dog wasn’t making it easy as it kept spinning around Danny’s legs barking at him. “Come on Pookie stand still.” Dash growled trying to catch the dog.

“Here.” Danny sighed and together they got the dog to be still long enough for Dash to put the collar back on.

“Thanks.” Dash said holding the dog by the collar as he put on a lead. “I don’t know how he do it, he just slips out of the collar some times.” The two teens straightened. “I didn’t see you at the library today, you said you’d help with the math homework we got.” Dash said giving the dog some lead so that he could sniff around.

Scratching the back of his neck Danny winced, the movement had aggravated the wounds. “I was a bit caught up with other things, I’ll give you a hand tomorrow after school.” He lowered his arm and tugged at the sleeve.

“Sure.” Dash answered and for a moment they stood awkwardly quiet in the rain. “Hey you forgot your jacket at the library yesterday, I couldn’t bring it to school or people might start thinking. It’s at my… place, if you got time.” Dash nodded down the street.

Shrugging Danny stepped to the side. “Show the way.” He said wondering when Dash had stopped thinking of him as the target for his bullying.

They walked on in silence, the rain soaking Danny’s hair and shirt. Pookie kept running around them forcing the two to lift their feet’s ever so often or trip over the lead. The silence drew out an odd pressure between the two until Dash finally spoke. “You going to watch the game tonight?” he asked.

Rolling his shoulders in a shrug Danny kept his eyes on the dog. “What game?” he asked and regretted it. Dash being a football player himself knew everything there was to know about the sports and Danny’s obvious ignorance made him go on a rant explaining not only what teams were playing each other but how they had come to play against the other team. “You are just lecturing me about this to get back on me lecturing you on physics the other day.” Danny accused Dash when he could get a word in.

“Eh, No, You honestly don’t know anything about football?” Dash asked looking down on Danny as if he was better than him in every way.

Putting his hand in his pockets Danny shrugged. “I know how the game works, I was the school mascot Junior year, had to know when it was going good for the team and when to run away from you.” He said.

“Oh Yeah forgot about that, why did you become the schools mascot? You were terrible by the way, even your nerd friend could have done it better.” Dash said not aware that Tucker had been in the mascot costume more than Danny had.

“Extra credit in gym-class.” Danny sighed wiping away the water running down his face. “Are we at your place yet I’m getting soaked in this rain.”

Dash looked at Danny in surprise, he hadn’t noticed that the other boy was getting drenched in the rain. “Yeah we’re close, it’s just up ahead.” He pointed at a smaller house at the end of the road.

As they got closer Danny could see two cars in the driveway, Dash’s blue sports car and a shiny chrome city car with a sticker on the back advertising Baxter & Co’s quality cars. Danny felt Dash tense beside him and looking up at the larger teen he saw puzzlement on Dash’s face. “What’s wrong?” Danny asked but Dash didn’t answer before the front door to the house opened and a man roaring at the top of his longs could be heard throughout the neighborhood.

“He is my son! I don’t care what your lawyer said to you, I have the right to see him whenever I want!” Danny could see the outline of a broad shoulder person standing in the door.

“But not at my house, not on my property. You can see him wherever you want but coming here unannounced is against the papers you signed the day we got divorced!” A woman shouted back.

“I did not sign any such agreements, and you can’t tell me where I can and cannot go. You’ve bought this pathetic house with the money you swindled out of me for the settlement just as you stole my son away from me when you left!” Pookei was cowering under Dash, shivering.

“We went to court over this, the judge agreed that he is better of living with his mother that works reasonable hours instead of you who brings home junk food when you get home late and won’t bother to cook, because you know what, You can’t!” Danny got an odd taste in his mouth, something he couldn’t place. It was both sweet and sour at the same time.

“Yes let the woman try and raise a man, who do you think gave him the car for his birthday, who do you think it was that payed of the school to look the other way whenever he was accused of bullying. Who do you think it was that got the best defense attorney in the state ready when he almost killed that Fenton kid last week! Me, you couldn’t afford that on a secretary’s salary, or wait no you’re a hooker now I remember.” Glancing at Dash’s face Danny saw him biting his lower lip.

“And with that you’ve proven my lawyers point. You pay people of and try and by our son’s love all the while teaching him that he can get away with anything as long as he got money!” The woman growled back.

“What do you teach him, that it’s alright to cry, that having plushies and watching soap opera is manly. He has a fucking Chihuahua and listens to boybands, your turning him in to a faggot woman, not a man.” There was the sound of a hand slapping a cheek and the man in the door took a step back letting the taller woman take a step forward to point down at him.

“Don’t you ever insult our son in front of me ever again. He will grow up to be a better man than you ever was.” She turned around on one sharp heel. “And for the record I’m a professional barista and mixologist, who gets payed twice what a lonely secretary gets.” She walked in slamming the door close in the burly man’s face.

The man cursed at the door before turning toward his car. His eyes fell on the two teens and the dog. “Dash my boy, There you are!” The man called walking past his car towards the two of them. “I was just coming to get you, wouldn’t want to miss the game tonight would yah?” He asked the light from a nearby streetlamp illuminating his face, showing a round face, squared jaw, dark blond hair and a large walrus mustache. He wore a trenchcoat over a nice business suit that didn’t hide the beer belly.

Dash’s Dad was hardly taller than his son but Dash seemed to shrink in his presence. “Sorry dad but I can’t. Me and… Dan are watching the game tonight.” He nodded down at Danny who gave Dash a quizzical raised eyebrow.

“That’s great, I’ve got lots of space in my car, you just leave the dog with your mom and we can go.” Mr Baxter said turning to his car unlocking it with the remote key.

Biting his lip Dash looked down at Danny. “Sorry Fenton, I’ll get you your jacket and give you a ride home.” Dash said in a lowered voice picking up his dog from the ground.

“Why?” Danny asked looking at his bully confused. He’d never seen Dash so miserable, except for that time with the student consular Spectra, who’d, sucked the happiness out of everyone. Dash looked as if he’d just had a session with the life sucking ghost when the only thing that had happened was that his dad had talked to him, making Dash shrink.

“What you mean why, I’ve told dad you were watching the game with me, I can’t tell him now that you won’t.” Dash hissed at Danny.

“Sure you can.” Danny said. “But that wasn’t what I was thinking of.” Dash gave Danny a confused look. “Why don’t you stand up to your old man, you just folded like a piece of paper.”

Anger flashed in Dash’s eyes. “What do you know? You’re the wimp who runs away as soon as a ghost is around.”

“And you don’t.” Danny said and shook his head. “Just bring me my jacket and I’ll get home on my own.” He said hearing the engine of Mr Baxter’s car roar to life.

Carrying his dog under one arm Dash walked up the two steps to the front door of the small house leaving Danny to wait by the sidewalk in the rain. Waiting Danny thought of what he’d just witnessed. Dash the bully, the one who always had it all, had a troubled life at home. One didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that Dash was afraid of his dad and that the tension between his parents was affecting him too.

His sister had once told him that bullies often had problems in their life on other fronts and that’s why they were bullying others, to take back some sort of control over their lives, to feel powerful instead of feeling powerless. Pushing back his wet fringe from his eyes Danny watched the shadows of Dash and his mother in the window as they spoke. He was tempted for a moment to go closer and eavesdrop but decided that it was better not to.

Mr Baxter’s car were idling in the driveway for a little over five minutes before Dash walked out of the house a sports bag over one shoulder and Danny’s jacket under one arm. He walked over to Danny and shoved the jacket at him. “If you tell anyone at school I’ll send you up the flag post by your underwear.” He growled.

Accepting the jacket Danny shrugged it on. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but if you keep beating on me I might slip up.”

Straightening Dash glared down at Danny. “Then you better make sure I don’t fail any more tests. I might break that talkative mouth of yours if I do.” He smirked but it somehow looked more like a friendly smile to Danny than the normal despising look.

Rolling his eyes Danny turned to walk down the way they’d come. “See you tomorrow.” He said pulling up the hood on his jacket.

Moments later both the chrome city car and the blue sports car drove past Danny, splashing water on to the lower parts of his jeans as they past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just say that Dash dosn't have the perfect life that everyone thinks he has.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh oh! Time to tell the thruthe... Or not.

A familiar Ford was parked in the driveway to Mrs Oswald’s house when Danny returned. He stopped beside it for a moment before peeking throw the kitchen window. He saw Mrs Oswald sitting across the table from a less formally dressed Mrs Stewarts, there were things placed on the table between them that Danny couldn’t see without being seen himself.

Turning away from the window he walked in to the house. As soon as the door clicked shut Mrs Oswald spoke. “Daniel can you come in here.” She called from the kitchen.

Kicking of his wet shoes and leaving them in the hall Danny walked over to the kitchen door. Mrs Oswald, her arms crossed over her chest and Mrs Stewarts with her legs crossed a notebook in her hand were both facing him. On the table between them were Danny’s first aid kit, the medicine box from Vlad and his broken phone. “Hallo Mrs Stewarts.” Danny said in a dull tone, water dripping down his face.

“Hi Daniel. Would you take a seat.” She answered pointing for Danny to sit down on the chair between them. Walking in to the kitchen Danny removed his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair before sitting down. “I had a very disturbing phone call from Mrs Oswald two hours ago, can you imagen what it was about?” Mrs Stewarts began.

Pushing his wet hair out of his face Danny looked at Mrs Stewarts. “Do you want me to answer that or do you want to continue your story?” He said well aware of what Mrs Oswald might have told her and indifferent to the consequences, seeing as he already was in a bad situation and it couldn’t get much worse.

Sighing Mrs Stewarts looked down on her notebook. “She said that she found you in your room cutting yourself, and when she confronted you, you ran away.” It was clearly a summary of what Mrs Oswald had told the social worker but it wasn’t untrue. Nodding Danny glanced at Mrs Oswald, the woman was dressed like she had been earlier that day, jeans and a sweater, her red curls fell down her back freed from their confides at the back of her head. “When I saw you earlier today you didn’t seem like you wanted to hurt yourself. What happened?”

“After I left my parent’s house? Nothing.” Danny said fingers tugging at the hems of his sleeves. “I didn’t cut myself so you know, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what really happened, so why should I bother.”  
Mrs Oswald opened her mouth to speak but closed it again after a look from Mrs Stewarts. “Tell us what happened, we are listening.” She said keeping a calm and methodical tone of voice.

Scratching the back of his head Danny sighed, he’d thought of how he was going to explain the cuts on his arms and he’d decided on the half-truth. “A tiger ghost decided to sharpen its claws on my arms yesterday night.” He said omitting the part about him fighting the ghost or being a ghost himself, after all those were unimportant details.

The social worker looked down at her notes before she looked over at Mrs Oswald. “You said he told you he’d been scratched by a cat right?”

“Yes and he tried to blame his lateness yesterday on a ghost.” Mrs Oswald said in a tired voice.

Turning back to Danny Mrs Stewarts placed her notebook on the table. “Show me your arms Danny.” She said holding out her hands.

Pulling down the sleeves of his shirt the two women were surprised to see white bandages covering his forearms. He held them out for the two to see. “Is that enough?” he asked too tired to play games.

“Let me see.” Mrs Stewarts said taking Danny’s left arm in her hands. She found the tide of ends of the bandages and with the ease of practice removed the fabric to reveal seven stitched up cuts. Inspecting the stitches she turned Danny’s arm left and right before asking to see the other one. The stitches on that arm weren’t as nice as the once on his left arm but they did the job. “Who did this? Who stitched you up?” She asked putting the bandages back on around the wounds.

“I did.” Danny answered.

He’d expected the startled surprise on the two women’s faces, Mrs Oswald’s jaw dropped and Mrs Stewarts stopped wounding the bandages. Taking the rolls of fabric away from the woman Danny finished covering the cuts on his arms. “Didn’t it hurt?” Mrs Oswald asked having finally found her words.

“As much as getting the scratches had.” Danny lied, it hadn’t hurt that much, his arms had been to nub from the cold to feel much of anything. “But they needed to be sewn up or they’d leave big ugly scars.”

“Who taught you how to do this?” Mrs Stewarts asked her notebook and pen in hand once more.

“Youtube.” Danny said leaning back to slouch in his chair. “Anything else or can I go?” he asked knowing all to well that they weren’t finished with him.

“No.” Mrs Stewarts said straightening and looking down on her notes. “Why would a ghost attack you, and if you got these cuts yesterday why didn’t you say anything?”

Looking at the woman as if she was stupid Danny rolled his eyes. “First of My Parents are ghost hunters, ghost sometimes decides to go after me because of this. As for your second question.” He nodded at Mrs Oswald. “I didn’t know how you would react, I’m used to taking care of myself so that’s what I did.”

Looking down on her hands Mrs Oswald shook her head. “You should have told me right away, you shouldn’t have hidden this from me. I’m charged with taking care of you as long as you are under my roof, lies and secrets will only complicate this job of mine.”

Feeling a headache coming on Danny pinched the spot between his eyes. “Let’s not start this again.” He sighed and turned to Mrs Stewarts. “Any more questions?”

She tapped her pen to the notebook before pointing at the medicine box. “What’s in the box?” She asked.

“Vitamins and iron supplements, I was told.” He couldn’t remember exactly what Vlad had told him that they were.

“There is nothing in your file that says you are taking any kind of medication, how did you get them, who gave them to you.” Mrs Stewarts asked her pen still tapping her notebook.

“I think there is a prescription for painkillers that I haven’t taken out yet as well as something in case I have another allergic reaction.” He shrugged. “ And it was Vlad who told me to take them, something about restoring my immune system after I was sick.” The tapping was starting to get irritating.

The two women exchanged looks with each other’s, Mrs Stewarts peen kept tapping and Danny’s headache got worse. Finally Mrs Stewarts turned to Danny and stopped tapping her pen. “I want you to do a drug test Danny.” She said.

Blinking at the woman it took Danny a moment for the words to sink in. “Um why?” he asked lowering his hand from his face.

“You are showing some of the signs of drug use, changes in behavior, Mood swings, Change in sleeping pattern, Carelessness about personal grooming as well as some symptoms associated with LSD.” She said making Danny look at her in disbelief.

Trying to come up with something to say he shook his head before raising his arms in surrender. “Alright whatever, I’m not on any drugs, so go ahead.” He’d come to regret his decision later but at that moment he didn’t really care too much.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment you think things are going smoothly all hell breaks lose.

“You are lucky they didn’t decide to move you to some other foster home after this.” Sam stated. After having talked with his social worker and Mrs Oswald for another hour he’d gone to his room and changing in to Phantom he duplicated himself making the copy change back to Fenton and go to sleep while he flew off to patrol Amity Park together with Sam and Tucker.

They hadn’t faced any ghost that night and were all just in his parents lab emptying out the Fenton thermos. Danny had spent the whole night telling his friends of the confrontation with Mrs Oswald and the meeting with Mrs Stewarts. “Yeah well they set up new rules for me.” Danny sighed pressing the flush button on the console. “I have to go straight home after school, I’m not allowed to leave the house without supervision and I’m not allowed internet access if not for school purposes. It’s like I’m some kind of child who can’t be trusted.”

“You can’t be serious about the internet, how are we supposed to play Doom!?” Tucker said looking at Danny as if he’d just described hell.

Rolling her eyes Sam elbowed Tucker. “That’s not the most important thing right now.” She told him and turned to Danny. She’d already made him show her the cuts on his arms just to stop her worrying and after that she’d listened to his story. “How are you planning on protecting Amity Park from ghosts now that you are being watched like a hawk you’re every waking hour?”

Removing the thermos from the socket Danny looked inside of it. “Same way I am now.” He glanced over at them. “I had to duplicate myself, the copy is back at the house sleeping, I think.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I think the best way is to have a duplicate at Mrs Oswald’s whenever I can’t be there, and I talked to Dannielle, she said she’d stand in for me if there ever were any strong ghost in town that required my full attention.”

Snapping his fingers Tucker grinned. “That’s a great idea, I wonder who came up with it? Hey can’t you just have a copy stand in for you all the time so we can hang out, there’s going to be a big gamers meetup this weekend, you want to join?”

Stomping her foot down on Tuckers the teck geek smiled at Sam. “Steal toed boo AWWWW!” She’d kicked his calves instead. “Come on that hurts!”

“I wouldn’t be kicking you if you weren’t saying stupid things.” Sam huffed putting her hands on her hips.

“What stupid about Danny having a copy at that foster home and one here, it’s smart.” Tucker growled crossing his arms.

Sam let out an exasperated sound before turning to Danny. “You haven’t told him have you.”

Shrugging Danny attached his thermos to the utility belt. “Don’t get mad at me. You only know of the side effects because you were bothering me all the time.”

Looking from Sam to Danny Tucker raised an eyebrow. “Did I miss something?” He asked the ever present smartphone in his hand typing.

Crossing his arms over his chest Danny looked at his best friend. “You remember last summer. Jazz got us all to go on a second camping trip and I couldn’t leave the town unguarded, ghosts kept attacking each and every day. I made a duplicate of myself to protect the town when I was gone.”

“Wait you told me you didn’t go on the trip and spent the week at my place playing videogames and crashing on the couch when you weren’t fighting ghosts!” Tucker exclaimed.

Nodding Danny’s fingers moved through his hair. “I did, and at the same time I was with my family. When we got back I re-merged with my double thinking everything was going to be just fine.” He scratched the back of his head again. “I hadn’t counted on the side effects to knock me to the ground with exhaustion and a migraine not of this world.” He meet Tucker’s eyes. “I’d rather not go through that again, just doing it now will leave me with a headache when I get back.”

“Huh.” Tucker said and shrugged. “Well there was bound to be side effects to that ability, just like the duplication spell in Doom drains your stamina when you’ve finished using it.”

“Exactly, but with the added bonus that I remember everything my double did and we only share half the injuries as well.” Danny said knowing the spell Tucker was speaking of.

“Nice that’s even better than the spell in the game, you have two characters to control but only one health bar.” Tucker said continuing with the game reference.

“I’m surrounded by people who can only communicate through games.” Sam sighed rolling her eyes, she knew what they were talking about, being a master on the game already. 

They were about to place their arms around Danny’s shoulders so he could fly them out of the basement when he suddenly jerked his head up and stared in to the wall in front of him as if he could see right through it. “Is it another ghost?” Sam asked putting her hand on her Fenton ghost ray safely tucked away in her bag.

“No.” Danny said sounding a bit distracted and as if he was talking from a distance even though he was standing right beside them. Shaking his head he turned back to his friends gripping both of their shoulders and had carried them up in to the kitchen when his head whipped around again his eyes staring at something not there.

Suddenly Danny seemed to go translucent and his hands phased through his friends dropping them on the black and white tiled floor. “Hey what gives!” Tucker hissed well aware of the other Fentons in the house. But Danny didn’t look as if he heard them and he was suddenly pulled in the direction he was looking in, abandoning his friends in the dark kitchen.

“I don’t know what that was about but let’s get out of here before anyone sees us and let him explain this in school tomorrow.” Sam whispered to Tucker nudging him to walk toward the back door out of the house.

 

Danny knew he’d abandoned his friends at his parent’s house but for some reason it didn’t feel important, there was something else that literary called for his attention. He didn’t feel like he was flying or moving in any form, yet he saw buildings whoosh past him as he phased through anything in his way until he stopped.

Recognizing where he was going a wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. Seconds later he found himself standing in his bedroom at Mrs Oswald’s staring at the two brawling teenagers. Cody, dressed much like the double of Danny in only boxers and a t-shirt was trying to get a choke hold around Danny’s neck at the same time as Danny was trying to throw the kid off of him without making any noise.

The moment the fighting Danny saw his half see-through double their eyes met and in a flash of light the two were one. Danny Fenton put a hand on his knees breathing heavily and rubbing his throat. The memories of what had happened were suddenly there as if Danny had been there all along.

He’d been reading a book in the light of his charged ghost ray waiting for his copy to return when the door had opened to reveal Cody. They had said somethings in low hissing voices growing angrier by the minute before Cody had tried to hit him or was it Danny who tied to hit Cody, it was all a bit confusing and he’d been there. They’d ended up fighting as quietly as they could so as not to wake the others in the house .Danny had called his double back to get an advantage, thus unintentionally re-merging with his other half.

Cody blinked confused from the spot Danny had just been in over to where he was. “The fuck did you do?” He asked flinging himself at Danny.

Cold annoyance settled over Danny and instead of continuing the brawl Danny ended it. Weeks of practicing self-defense with his mom and sister had given him technique and reflexes he couldn’t have gotten on his own. In a liquid motion he gripped both of Cody’s wrists, turned him around and kicked his feet’s out from under him making the younger teen hit the floor with a soft thump. 

Struggling Cody tried to kick Danny but the older kid avoided and knelt down over Cody, knees on either side of his chest. “Try that again and I’ll…” Cody spat in Danny’s face. For a moment Danny saw red and reacted like he often did in situations similar to that, he head-butted Cody, remembering only in the last second to rain in his powers.

Letting out a stifled cry Cody tried to roll up and cover his face but Danny didn’t let him. “I warned you.” He hissed.

“You broke my nose again.” Cody wined.

Rolling his eyes Danny put a cold hand to Cody’s face and the kid yelped when frost bit in to his skin. “Shut up or you’ll get in to trouble.” He growled. “Stop acting innocent and explain yourself.”

Tear-filled eyes glared up at Danny. “Explain what? You were the one who hurt and insulted my mom. It’s freaks like you who uses my mom’s kindness and drive her to exhaustion. You should have just killed yourself like you planned.” 

Danny blinked a couple of times taking in what Cody had said. “I don’t, and I didn’t.” He said trying to remember when he’d used Mrs Oswald and when he’d insulted her. “I only told her the truth as I know it. And don’t call me freak or I will break your nose for real this time.”

Wriggling underneath Danny Cody tried to land another kick but with no strength behind it the kick didn’t feel much more than a bump. “You are all the same, you all use her and think you can get away with anything because she isn’t your mom, but you hurt her. All of you hurt her.” Tears were rolling down the sides of Cody’s face in to his hair.

Shaking his head Danny sighed. “I can’t speak for the others but I would never hurt your mom. She is a good woman and she takes care of my cousin.” The cold anger inside of him was slowly melting. “As long as Dannielle is happy I’ll stay out of your moms hair, but if you make her life any harder I will make sure that all the pranks you’ve been playing on me seems like child’s play in comparison.”

Sneering at Danny Cody lifted his cheek. “Do that and I’ll tell mom you’ve been sneaking out every night then we’ll see who’s in trouble.” 

Sighing Danny got up from Cody. “Piss off. I don’t have the time to deal with you too.” He said and watched Cody scramble to his feet’s and run out of the room a hand covering his still bleeding nose.

Rubbing his aching head Danny closed the door to his room and searched for his phone. He found it on the floor crushed. Pressing the startup button he got no response from the device and in anger threw it across the room hitting a wall were the screen shattered in to small fragments of glass. He didn’t care that it made a loud noise.

Climbing back in to bed he pulled the covers over his head hearing the sound of Mrs Oswalds feet’s hitting the floor.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The talk with the Shrink dosn't go as planed. But when dose anything go as planed in Danny's world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apoligize in advance if I'm stepping on anybody's toes. That is not my intention with these stories.

If the last week had been tiring the second week was a strain on Danny. The only times he hadn’t used his copy to be at two places at the same time was during the nights when he slept and during the school hours. After school he spent some time with Sam and Tucker before flying back to Wishing Hill, he would leave a copy of himself at Mrs Oswald’s home and fly to the library where he helped Dash with schoolwork. It was a silent agreement that as long as Danny helped Dash pass his school subject he wouldn’t bully Danny, and as long as Dash didn’t pick on Danny he would continue to help Dash with the schoolwork.

Making sure that he got back before seven Danny merged with his double and eat dinner with the rest of the people in the house. After that he lay on his bed nursing a migraine that got worse every time he split and re-merged with himself and only the exhaustion from patrolling Amity Park, fighting ghosts and stopping two more teens from committing suicide, let him sleep.

Mrs Stewarts had come by that Wednesday and talked to Mrs Oswald for a bit before knocking on Danny’s door to give him a new time and place for his session with a psychiatrist called Gideon Stones that Friday.

Glancing down at the note with the address that Friday Danny glared up at the building the address belonged to. On the right were the office building he’d been in the previous Friday, the building where all the social service people in town had an office space. On the left were the local nuthouse. Gracie Road Psychiatric Hospital, was a five story tall old brick building and partly because of the rain and gloom looked like the old North Mercy hospital at the outskirts of Amity Park.

“Please tell me there is no connection between the two places.” Said Danny to himself as he rubbed the spot between his eyebrows trying to ward of the oncoming migraine. When it didn’t work he glanced at his watch and sighed. He really didn’t want to do this but, if he wanted to be with his family again he had no choice.

Mustering all the courage and confidence he could he walked in through the front doors of Gracie Road Hospital. The entrance hall looked like any other hospital, there were a reception desk, signs, a waiting area, snack machines and potted plants in every corner. Walking up to the receptionist Danny talked to the woman sitting behind the desk for a few minutes before he was asked to sit down and wait.

Slouching down in an empty chair Danny rubbed his temples. Trying to ignore all the sounds coming from the people in the building he waited. He’d almost dosed of when a blond man in a pair of worn tight jeans and a blue shirt called his name. Sighing Danny got up from his chair and walked over to the man. “Hallo! You Daniel, nice to meet you I’m Dr Gideon Stones but just call me Gideon.” The man said giving Danny his hand to shake.

“Danny.” Danny answered taking the man’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, this way, my office is on the second floor.” He said showing Danny to the elevator. Digging his hands deep in to his jacket pockets Danny followed the man.

They’d just exited the elevator on the second floor when Gideon’s phone rang. “Sorry give me just a minute.” He said picking up the old Nokia from his pocket and answered it. “Gideon here.”

Raising an eyebrow Danny listened to the conversation ,biting his lower lip as he did. “I’ll be right there.” Gideon said before hanging up. “I’m sorry Danny there is a situation, can you go back down and wait again I’ll be right there.” He said before turning to the emergency stairs beside the elevator.

“Sure.” Danny said walking back in to the elevator with no intention of doing what the psychiatrist wanted.

 

Gideon got to the top of the stairs and opened the door to the roof. Normally it would have been locked for safety reasons but someone must have forgotten to lock it after taking a smoke on the roof. There were four other persons on the roof, two nurses and one of Gideon’s interns were standing close to the door he’d just come out of. The fourth was a young teen Gideon recognized as a patient who had sessions with his intern.

The teenager was balancing on the edge of the roof his arms stretched out as he looked down. Carefully Gideon moved over to his intern. “What’s going on?” he asked but he could already tell what was happening.

“Long story short, we were supposed to have a meeting and when I went down to the waiting room to get him he wasn’t there. The receptionist said that he had gone into the elevator and when I was looking around for him I found the roof door opened and him standing on the edge.” The intern explained biting his thumbnail nervously. He wasn’t prepared for something like this and that’s why he’d called Gideon.

“Tell me about the kid why is he here…” Gideon trailed of as he saw a second teen, one he’d told to go back down, walk up to the low wall the other teen was standing on and step on to it. “Danny what are you doing!” Gideon shouted at the black haired boy.

Danny still had his hands in his pockets as he looked over the edge down to the street below. “Just having a look.” He answered Gideon before turning his eyes to the teenager beside him. A scrawny guy with curly brown hair and brilliant green eyes, dressed like Danny in a winter jacket, old t-shirt and loosely fitting jeans. “You’ve got to go head first if you want to kill yourself from this height.” He remarked to the other teen.

The teenager’s eyes flickered over at Danny before locking on to the building across the street. “You should get down you don’t want to fall.” He said nervously.

Shrugging Danny looked over at the social services building across from them. “I’ve fallen from higher heights and survived. That’s why I’m telling you to dive head first if you want to kill yourself it’s a higher chance you’ll die that way.”

“Daniel do not encourage him.” Gideon said warningly standing only a couple of feet’s away from the two teenagers.

“I don’t know if it is encouraging to know that if you fail, you won’t only be hurting yourself but everyone around you, both psychically and physically.” Danny nodded down at the street. “There are a lot of people down there, jumping won’t only hurt you but inflict unimaginable injuries on them as well.”

The teenager bit his lip and clenched his hands. “What do you know. Jumping is better than going home.”

Gideon looked over at his intern who walked up to him and whispered in the older man’s ear. “His parents are going through a messy divorce.”

Shifting his stance Danny sighed. “Sure but do you want to hurt your parents or do you just want to get away from the trouble at home?” The green eyes flashed at Danny before returning to staring on the building across from them. “I can promise you that jumping will hurt your parents, your friends and anyone who have ever known you.”

“You don’t know a thing.” The teen said but he didn’t sound as sure as he had a moment before.

“You’re right; I don’t know how it feels standing at the precipice of a dark chasm. It’s not like I haven’t considered jumping when everything got to be too much for me to handle.” He turned to look straight at the other teenager. “I almost set myself on fire back then.”

“Why didn’t you?” The green eyed boy asked looking at Danny out of the corner of his eye.

Shrugging Danny glanced down at the people on the street, some were starting to notice them. “My sister, she found out how much I was hurting and stopped me before I could take the plunge.”

Swallowing the teen looked down as well. “How?” he asked the word almost getting stuck in his throat.

“By seeing everything from a different perspective, by talking to someone.” He nodded at the people on the roof. “These people are here to help you, they are here to listen to you. I’m here to hear what you have to say.”

Clenching his jaw the teen lifted his head towards the rainy sky. “How? Where do I begin, it’s easier to just.” He lifted his right foot from the low wall.

“Tell me your name?” Danny asked his voice calm but his muscles tense. “It’s easy I’ll go first. My name is Danny Fenton, I’m 16 and social services removed me from my home thinking my parents were hurting me.” Danny began wondering if he was saying the right words.

The teenager blinked and looked straight at Danny for the first time but didn’t say anything for a while. His eyes never left Danny puzzling over what he’d just said. Danny was getting nervous that the other people on the roof were going to interrupt at any moment but they didn’t, they waited.

“Neal Jackson, 15 and afraid of heights.” Neal finally said his right foot returning to rest on the edge.

“I could not have guessed you were afraid of heights.” Danny said a bit more relaxed. “They say you need to be really brave to decide to jump as a mean of suicide.”

Neal’s eyes moved down to stare at the street below. “I guess I should have taken a taller building.” He remarked.

“Yeah, but jumping still isn’t the surest way to kill yourself, unless you fall out of a plain without a parachute, which I’ve heard people can still survive from.” The rain was picking up soaking everyone on the roof making the people on the ground hurry for shelter or umbrellas.

“Should have hung myself in my room instead of trying to do something creative.” Neal’s eyes were starting to glisten.

“But you didn’t want your mom or dad finding you, right?” Danny asked having considered the same thing once.

Nodding Neal rocked from one foot to the other. “What do I do now?” He asked avoiding meeting Danny’s eyes again.

“You take a step back knowing that people will catch you if you fall.” Danny said glancing over at Gideon and his intern who were both slowly moving closer.

Neal didn’t stop rocking his fingers fidgeting with the sipper of his open jacket. “Can you tell me something?” he asked stopping his rocking.

“Sure, what do you want me to tell you?” Danny’s muscles were threatening to start cramping if he didn’t relax soon.

Turning around to face him Neal opened his mouth to speak and a gust of wind pushed him of his balance and over the edge. Closing the distance between the two of them Danny gripped Neal’s outstretched hand and held on as gravity tried to pull him down with Neal as well.

Screaming Neal gripped Danny’s arm with his free hand kicking at the wall trying to get a grip with his feet’s. “Stop kicking.” Danny said between gritted teethes. Leaning back as much as he could his feet’s slipping on the wet concrete.

In a flash ice bit in to the wall freezing Danny’s shoes to it. Two strong arms gripped Danny around the waist, pulling both him and Neal back on to the roof, the ice on Danny’s shoes giving way at his command. The two teenagers hit the roof hard letting go of each other.

Before Danny could do anything Gideon gripped the underside of his arm and pulled him up and out of the way of the intern and the two nurses that quickly swept Neal away in to the building.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The question is: Has Danny said to much or not enught

“Are you alright?” Gideon asked Danny when they were alone. He still had a hard grip around Danny’s biceps and sounded more startled than Danny felt.

Shrugging Danny jerked his arm out of Gideon’s grip. “I’m fine, what are you going to do to Neal?” he asked looking at the rooftop door which Neal had just been taken through.

“Help him.” Gideon sighed, “Come on we’ll get soaked if we stay out here any longer.” Gideon gave Danny a light push before walking over to the door and opening it.

The two walked down the stairs in silence till Gideon stopped. “I just have to ask but what made you get up on that wall?”

Stopping Danny pushed back his now soaking wet hair. “I didn’t want him to jump.” He began. “I knew I could talk him down so I did.”

A wrinkle appeared on Gideon’s forehead. “Because you knew what he was going through?” He asked.

Rubbing at his temple Danny turned around. “I wasn’t going to tell you that.” He said regretting talking about the darkest moment of his life.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Gideon asked.

Shaking his head Danny glanced at the man. He had no reason to trust Gideon, he had no reason to open up to him. “I’m just here because my social worker said that I had to talk to a shrink if I wanted to get back to my parents. I haven’t known you long enough to talk about things not even my closest friends knows about.”

The corners of Gideon’s mouth turned up in a soft smile. “You are right.” He said checking his watch. “Let’s go to my office, instead of standing in the open like this.”

 

Danny’s hair had almost dried when he and Gideon walked out of the elevator in the entrance hall. “Ah! Dr Stones there you are.” A red haired woman dressed in a red suit said from the reception desk.

“Dr Art Ceps, I believe you are in the wrong building.” Gideon said calmly before glancing back to see Danny standing still his eyes hard on the woman.

“Oh Daniel, my I see you’ve found yourself a new psychiatrist. I was glad to hear you’ve gotten someone as open-minded as Gideon.” She smiled walking over to the two of them. 

Having considered what he’d do if he ever found himself face to face with the red-haired woman ever again Danny dug his hand in to his pockets and kept his mouth shut. Noticing Danny’s strange reaction Gideon took a step to the side getting in-between Dr Art and the boy. “I am not sure if I should take that as a compliment or an insult Dr Art. However I think you should leave now, if you want to talk to me make an appointment through the normal channels.”

“Of course I will. I was just wondering how Neal was doing, your intern told me he’d just attempted to jump of the roof of this building?” Dr Art asked her green eyes moving to meet Danny’s.

“I don’t discuss patients in front of other patients.” Gideon said putting his hands on his hips. “Now will you leave or do I have to bother security?”

Giving Gideon a look of mock surprise Dr Art put a hand on her bosom. “You don’t have to be rude, I was just trying to find out how my patient was doing. Only to find you with another of my young once. If I didn’t know you better I would think you were stealing them from me.” 

“Please Dr Art Ceps, we are both professionals, I would not steal your patients. Out of my professional curtesy I am now giving you one last chance to leave before I call the guards.” Gideon said coldly.

Smiling Dr Art stepped around him to Danny. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us. But I’ll always be just across the street ready to cheer you up if this place ever gets to dark.” She said putting a comforting hand on Danny’s shoulder. His aching head suddenly felt as if it was going to explode.

His vision blurring Danny’s eyes flashed green before he closed them stepping away from the woman feeling even more exhausted than he had earlier that day. Opening his eyes to glare at the woman small dots of light flashed at the corners of his field of vision and… He blinked as a shiver went up his spine triggering his ghost sense.

“Take care Danny.” Dr Penelope Art Ceps said smiling down at him. “I’ll see you soon, Doctor Stones.” She said to Gideon before turning and walking out through the front doors.

“I don’t understand that woman.” Gideon said shaking his head and turning to Danny. 

Face-palming Danny rubbed at his eyes. “I am an idiot. Art Ceps, how did I not think about that earlier.”

“You okay Danny?” Gideon asked getting a bit worried over the boys reaction.

“Yeah. I better be off.” Danny said turning towards the door his thoughts far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapters are short so Im posting them all now. Also wanted them out before May.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan well layed down.

That Sunday afternoon Dr Penelope Art Ceps opened the door to her office taking a step to the side to let the young rich girl, for whom she was working on a Sunday, in. “Please, have a seat.” She said nodding for the girl to sit down on the couch. “Do you want some coffee or tea?” She asked the normal routine.

“No thanks.” Sam answered taking of the warm gloves she’d been wearing to ward of the winter cold. Instead of sitting down on the couch she stayed standing by the door her eyes moving over the walls taking in the decorations and framed diplomas. “How long have you worked as a shrink?” She asked.

Turning around Dr Art made a face as if thinking about it but her eyes moved to the diploma on the wall. “Five years now.” She answered. “Won’t you please have a seat it will be much easier to talk that way.”

Putting her hands on her hips Sam gave the woman an raised eyebrow. “I think I’ll stand. From what I’ve heard people who sits down on your couch decides to jump of buildings or drown themselves afterwards.”

“Don’t be silly.” Dr Art giggled. “Who told you that?”

Shrugging Sam’s eyes followed a shadow moving across the wall behind the psychiatrist. “I don’t know. Some kid a school maybe. Have you ever been to Casper High we have an amazing school spirit?”

Dr Art’s eyes narrowed. “No I don’t believe I have.” She answered. “Is there something special about this school spirit that you’ve decided to mention?”

Pushing back her hair Sam rolled her shoulders in a shrug. “Not really. Besides that it almost was crushed by a ghost on last year’s spirit week. This crazy student consoler and ghost Penelope Spectra tried to feed on the misery of all the students. You know you look a bit like her.”

Giggling nervously Dr Art took a step closer to Sam. “It isn’t nice to call someone a crazy ghost. I’ll tell you right now that I’m not a ghost. Please sit down and let us talk.”

There was a loud buzz from the couch. Turning around Dr Art found a second teen already seated in the couch his blue eyes gleaming behind black rimmed glasses. “Ghost, two feet ahead of you, if you can’t see it you better try a pair of glasses.” The large device in the dark skinned boys hand’s said making Tucker’s lips turn up in a smile. “No I think I see it alright.” He said adjusting said glasses on his nose.

“What are you doing here, how did you get in?” Dr Art asked her eyes moving around the room nervously.

“That’s not important.” Tucker said getting up from his comfortable seat.

“What is important is what you are doing to innocent teenagers, Penelope Spectra.” Sam finished his friends sentence her left arm outstretched a small ray-gun sticking out from the white wristband.

“Yeah we know who you are.” Tucker said seeing Spectra’s face twist in to a snarl. “Nice going with the new hairstyle and losing the glasses would have fooled me if I hadn’t known it was you.”

Lifting her chin up Spectra looked down at the two teenagers. “You must be mistaken my name is Penelope Art Ceps, not Spectra, I am human not a ghost.” She said with confidence.

“Oh please. We have the Fenton Finder saying you are a ghost, and Art Ceps come on it isn’t even an anagram, you just flipped your last name around and parted it to make two words, even an idiot could have figured that out.” Sam said rolling her eyes. “Are you going to give us an evil speech or will you own up to all the suffering you’ve caused the teens of this town.”

“I’ve got the thermos right here with your name on it.” Tucker said showing her the Fenton Thermos with Penelope Spectra taped on to it.

“Honestly you really think I’ll do that when we’ve got you right where we want you.” She snapped her fingers her eyes on the fourth person in the room. “Bertrand deal with them.” She commanded her small assistance standing in the dark corner between the two teenagers.

Giving each other board looks Sam and Tucker ignored the shape changing ghost. Her eyes glowing a faint red matching the color on her face Spectra snapped her fingers again pointing at Tucker as if ordering a dog. Bertrand moved at this but there was something odd about the way he moved as if wriggling in some tight bounds.

A echoing giggling made the teenagers grin. Spectra’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh you should see your face right now.” Danny Phantom said turning visible. He floated above Bertrand holding on to the free ends of a glowing green net that Spectra now saw was holding her assistant captive. “Surprised to see me. You shouldn’t be you practically told me who you were the other day.” Danny smiled.

Composing herself Spectra crossed her arms over her chest. “Took you long enough, thought you would call me out the first time you were here.” Moving her feet’s back slowly Spectra never took her eyes away from the ghost-boy. “Tell me how you figured it out or did you have to ask your sidekicks for help?”

“Not sidekicks.” Sam sighed rolling her eyes.

“No it was all me. We asked around your patients after we met last Friday.” Danny said showing no signs of moving.

“After I hacked your computer files of course, I’m really amazed at the crappy firewall on the social services servers. Then it was just a question of finding the others you depressed with that power of yours.” Tucker said giving Danny a grin.

“Sure but connecting the tiger ghost to Bertrand was my idea, and turns out I was right.” Sam said shifting her stance.

“And after questioning old Bertie here we found out that you’ve been using the box ghost as well.” Danny shook the net earning him a dark glare from the ghost in it.

“But haven’t you forgotten one thing Daniel.” Spectra grinned her eyes truly glowing red now with the faint florescent glow of ghosts emanating from her body. “You haven’t caught me yet.” She said throwing herself out the wall in to thin air.

“Should we have told her?” Tucker asked holding up the Fenton Finder to show four blips on the screen.

There was a blast of green light from outside the window and Spectra was flung back through the wall and crashed in to one of the easy chairs breaking it. “I think she just found out.” Danny grinned.

“Yeah she did.” Dani said floating in through the wall popping her knuckles as she did. “You messed with the wrong town lady, Danny might protect the world, but Wishing Hill belongs to me!.” Dani threw a blast of her ghost ray at the downed ghost. Missing her target only because Spectra phased through the floor.

“Should we have mentioned the other traps.” Sam said putting down her ghost ray as spectra was once more thrown in to the room, this time green gup covering her red suit.

She hit the ceiling and stayed floating before gravity had any chance to smash her face in to the floor. “Hey Dani, catch.” Tucker shouted tossing the thermos over to the youngest person in the room.

Catching the thermos Dani spun it around in her hand. “Any last words?” she asked a broad grin on her face.  
“You haven’t seen the last of meeeeeeeee…” Dani had pressed the button on the thermos making Spectra’s me drag on till she capped the thermos flipping it in to the air before catching it again.

“Sorry lady can’t hear you. ” She smiled. Looking over at the others she held up the thermos. “You want me to take care of the other one to?” She asked aiming the thermos at Bertrand.

“Be my guest.” Danny said letting his cousin take the other ghost as well.


	34. Epilog

“Thanks for your help Dannielle.” Said Danny as the four walked down the street away from the office building that was now one janitor and one psychiatrist shorter.

“It was nothing.” The young girl said her hands behind her head as she smiled. “It was really nice of you to let me give her the punch. You can’t believe how many of my school friends were hurt because of her.”

“Oh I think we can.” Sam said walking beside Danny her hands dug deep in her closed coat pockets.

“It was a good plan thou, did you hid any more traps around the building?” Dannielle asked .

“Yeah, we covered all possible ways for her do leave. The window wall was the hardest that’s why we needed you.” Tucker said a bit proud of his idea to put traps around Spectra’s office so that if she tried to leave she would be blasted back in to her room no matter where she went.

Tucker and Dannielle went on talking about the carefully laid out plan and how smoothly it had gone as Sam and Danny lagged behind a bit. They didn’t say anything to each other at first only enjoying the walk together till Danny opened his mouth to speak.

“I’ve been wondering.” Sam began interrupting Danny. “How come you didn’t notice the first time you met her that your shrink was Spectra?”

Blinking at his friend Danny scratched the back of his head. “Cus I was drugged by Vlad.” He said getting a shocked look from Sam. “It wasn’t anything bad.” Danny said quickly before she got the chance to shout at him.

“What was it then?” She asked giving Danny the suspicious eyebrow.

“Vlad said the pills he made me take were vitamins but not all of them were.” Danny began.

“You took the pills willingly!” She exclaimed.

“It was that or have him shove them down my throat.” Danny hissed back glancing at the others in front of them. They hadn’t heard anything or chose not to. “Anyhow, two of the pills were vitamins, one was an iron supplement the fourth was Benzodiazepines which was the reason I couldn’t stay awake in class and the last one was an antidepressant which name I can’t remember.”

Sam blinked at Danny. “I don’t know what to say, I’m just wondering how you could have been so dumb as to trust that creep.”

Shrugging Danny looked away from Sam. “I had no choice.” He muttered. “Besides it helped prevent the panic attack I would have gotten the first day when Mrs Stewarts dragged me to the hospital and for some reason they protected me from Spectra’s influence.”

“Sure but you don’t think Vlad had any hidden agendas drugging you? We all know what a creep he can be.” Sam pointed out.

Sighing Danny rolled his shoulders. “He probably had, but for now let’s just take things one step at a time. Please I can’t handle much more multitasking at the moment.”

“Wimp.” Sam said jabbing her elbow in to Danny’s arm. “Come on where’s the nearest Nasty Burger in this town I am starving.” She took Danny’s arm in hers and practically dragged him till they caught up to Dannielle and Tucker.

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for following this long story, I never intended for it to go on so long but it did. The next story is a short story followed by a BAU heavy one, they are both finished so I will continue posting on Tuesdays and whenever I feel like it. ^^
> 
> A practical question: What do you think of the art? Do you want me to continue puting it in to the chapers? or should I make a seperate page for that?
> 
> Thank you for reading this far, the next short story is called "Detention"

**Author's Note:**

> I'd just like to say that I wright this for fun and is basing it on the tv-show a lot and therefor uses my wrighters freedom to create the stories, just like I'm using my artistik freedom to draw.


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